The Road to Hell
by creamtea-from-FAP
Summary: Complete. Alt Book 7. Harry and Co. finally all have to learn just who they really are, and who they really are to each other. Oh  and it has a plot. Key characters: Harry, Draco but not shippy. Shipbashing: HG, RHR and DG.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** (Chapter 01)  
**Author Name:** creamtea-from-FAP  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Spoilers:** PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
**Genre:** Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
**Main Character(s):** H. D.  
**Ship(s):** Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
**Summary:** ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Chapter 1 

Privet Drive, Little Whingeing, prided itself on being the kind of place where nothing ever happened – nothing unsavoury that is. It wasn't near any council estates, it didn't have any sink schools, it's local amenities weren't pound-stores and charity shops. It was a _nice_ place, a _normal_ place … a very _narrow-minded_ place.

Privet Drive wasn't just normal, it was almost aggressively normal. It liked things the same. It liked a nice matching set. It liked everyone to have a nice detached house with a neatly trimmed lawn with nice clipped hedges and a block-paved drive – russet red, mind you, _not_ that nasty, common, yellow. It liked a well-polished car, dwarf conifers either side of the front door and, just lately, it had taken a liking to vertical blinds. Vertical blinds were the current fashion; the population of Privet Drive had, with the wordless communication of a flock of birds, decided one day that vertical blinds had replaced net curtains: you were now slightly odd if you had net curtains.

And no-one on Privet Drive liked to be even slightly odd.

Despite all its complacent disapproval, Privet Drive didn't mind strangers, what Privet Drive didn't like, was 'strange'.

They'd have had the vapours if they known the truth about 'that funny boy' at Number 4.

And this Saturday in mid-August, despite having been 17 for about two weeks, 'that funny boy' was still somehow at Number 4 and still very, very strange.

Harry Potter was a wizard. Not that you'd know it to look at him. Instead, he looked like an ordinary seventeen-year-old boy: faded jeans, t-shirts that had been too many times in the wash, scuffed trainers and hair any passer-by would despair of. He had one distinguishing feature: a thin, red, lightning-bolt shaped scar that ran down one temple, the scar he got when Voldemort tried to murder him by firing a killing spell at him and the spell rebounded to vanquish Voldemort himself.

Harry had been sure that, on the second he turned seventeen, he would have been kicked out, but Uncle Vernon didn't seem aware that he could and Aunt Petunia couldn't quite seem to get around to it. She'd even given him a birthday present this year: a card left over from Dudley's birthday and an orange; she'd shoved them at him with her face turned the other way.

Harry had wondered if she'd gotten a bit clingy because Dudley was finally 'leaving the nest' and Petunia was getting a bit tearful about it. Dudley had 'left school early' and was going into the Army; Harry quietly thought Petunia was lucky he wasn't going into jail!

The Dursleys had always explained Harry's absences at Hogwarts by telling everyone that he attended a place called _St Brutus's Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys_. But their choice of explanation had come back to haunt them as Dudley had been shown up as 'incurably criminal' himself: he had been expelled from Smeltings for getting under-age boys drunk, selling them booze he bought cheap at an obliging off-license.

Smeltings was a very expensive school; Harry considered that it had finally proved itself worth the money when it kicked Dudley out.

Uncle Vernon had been outraged: "_There have been Dursley's at Smeltings since – since –since a very long time!"_

The Head had held his nerve though – not an easy thing to do in the face of a blustering, walrus-sized Vernon – as Smeltings was determined that its reputation would not be that of allowing its under-age charges to be illegally dosed-up until they were incapacitated. Dudley had been 'rusticated'.

Vernon had gotten Aunt Marge around for a war counsel. Aunt Marge had, as usual, addressed all present as though she were on a parade ground or was disciplining one of her unruly Bulldogs from a distance, her bellow bouncing off the walls.

"Not your fault, Vernon. I always say it – but when a whelp goes wrong, look to the bitch!"

Harry's eyes had nearly popped. Aunt Marge had once said something nasty like that about his mum, but Petunia Dursley was actually sitting in the room!

Aunt Marge had cast the meekly horrified Petunia an appraising look, as though sizing up a piece of horseflesh – Harry was amazed she didn't promptly start examining Petunia's teeth.

"Always was something rum about the mother's family, Vernon! But Dudley's got good Dursley stock on his side though. Nothing wrong with him that department. Nothing wrong that a proper, bracing, set-to won't sort out!" At that, her voice got even louder, "A boy needs to be away from the influence of his mother, Vernon. I say that there comes a time when the maternal influence has a weakening effect on the pup! I don't like to see a weak pup. A good, fierce little biter is best. Nothing too thoughtful. A dog that'll just follow orders. After a while, the maternal instinct just confuses the pup, is what I say!"

She promised to have a quiet shout with her great friend, Colonel Fubster. "Leave it to me Vernon! I'll sort something out for the boy. Lad needs a bit of discipline, that's all. I'll have a word with Colonel Fubster, he's still got an awful lot of pull with his old regiment. Dudley will go into the Army – that's the place for him!"

Luckily for Vernon and Petunia, Dudley had already turned 18 and Colonel Fubster had been able to pull a few strings. Now Vernon could puff his chest out to the neighbours, "He's going to Officer Training School. Smeltings was useless for Dudley – a boy like that needs a man's job, not pansying about in lessons! Always been Dursleys in the army. Tradition. Goes back centuries!"

He may have been all bluster to the neighbours, but at home, after Aunt Marge's firmly expressed feelings about 'bitches', he had taken to looking darkly at Petunia and muttering about 'mother's influence'.

Petunia had meekly tried to voice an objection to Dudley's military future - _"but Dudders is too delicate to go into the Army!"_ - only to be met with an increasingly reddening Vernon who exploded.

"_Will you shut up, woman!_ Do you think sorting this mess out has been easy? Marge saves the day for us, and all you can do is _complain?_"

Petunia's hand had flown to her mouth and her eyes had gone very large.

"My family have generations of service to the nation at their backs," Vernon had barked on. "Generals, Majors, seniors in the church, and every one educated at Smeltings. But what were your family? They were wit – wiz – _that_ sort! And worse," he had then choked slightly, "worse," he had spluttered, "worse - you were a family of - a family of," - Harry had been round eyed, what could be so bad that Uncle Vernon could hardly bring himself to say it? "Worse," he had finally forced the words out, "you were a family of _shopkeepers! _Lower-middle class rubbish, all of you! Holding your forks funny, eating peas with your knives and you, Petunia, you … drinking tea …" Vernon had made that odd choking sound again and Harry's mind had galloped, what on earth could be wrong with drinking tea? Even the Queen drank tea! - _"with your little finger stuck out and putting milk in the cup last!_ _To think I married you! What on earth possessed me?"_

"But Vernon, you married me because you loved me!"

"I married you because you were _pregnant!_ You _deceived _me! You got yourself up the duff knowing I had to marry you. You did it _deliberately!"_

Petunia's eyes had gone wide and horrified.

Harry had been astounded, that wasn't _true _was it?

"You got yourself pregnant and married me to get away from your family!" Vernon had roared, eyes closed and fists balled so that he looked like a very bad-tempered baby. "I was just the first likely fellow who came along! You didn't even tell me about your bally sister and your family's," he had flung a searing glance at Harry and hissed, "your family's _weirdness_ - not until you'd safely got the ring on my finger! I was just an escape from your family! You _tricked _me!"

Petunia had trembled for a second, whimpered, then burst into tears.

Harry had been astonished, it had been a bit like being plunged into the middle of one of Petunia's torrid day-time soaps.

Petunia had gotten a bit odd after Vernon's accusatory outburst, though. Harry had passed her once as she sat in the lounge, a large, stiff book on her lap: a photograph album. He'd thought it was pictures of her and Vernon and Dudley, until he'd seen that a lot of photographs were in black and white. He saw a picture of two small girls, cuddling and grinning together. She'd been tracing the lines of their faces with her finger; remembering. When she'd seen him looking, her expression had grown clenched and shuttered and she had kicked the door shut against him.

For his birthday he'd gotten a Firebolt broom-care kit from Ron and two tickets to the Quidditch Cup Final from Hermione. _'Two tickets, Harry, one for you and one for that Someone Special.' _She had given a big, broad conspiratorial wink at that. _'Honestly Harry, take her with you – you see so little of her that anyone would think you'd split up! The only reason I know you haven't is because you would have told me if you had._'

Uncomfortably, he had looked away from her at that.

Harry had gotten a flurry of birthday cards and one, addressed in big, loopy, girly handwriting, still lay unopened. He wasn't ignoring it, he told himself, he just hadn't got around to opening it yet, that's all … In any case, he hadn't gone to the Quidditch match, and nor had he left Privet Drive. Fred and George Weasley had not yet got his flat-above-the-shop ready, but even so there were other places he could have gone. Grimmauld Place for one, but it held miserable memories of Sirius who had never liked it there and as a consequence neither did Harry. He could have also gone to The Burrow …

Harry jolted and surveyed his bedroom: he'd been making a half-hearted effort to pack his trunk and leave for The Burrow in time for Bill and Fleur's imminent wedding and the room was, quite frankly, a bit of a pit. Empty fizzy-drinks cans lay about, smelly socks lay abandoned and old copies of the _Daily Prophet _were strewn everywhere. Harry glanced at an edition, catching its screaming headlines of doom and disaster. '_Last year's Brockdale Bridge disaster re-examined! Unexplained collapse into the swift-flowing river … Hundreds of corpses were never found! Is an Inferi army being built?'_

Exasperated, Harry stuffed the copy into an already-full waste-paper bin.

Apart from screeching coverage of the Muggle 'Inferi Killings', the _Daily Prophet_ had other preoccupations: one being the death of Dumbledore. '_Where had Dumbledore been that night and was Harry Potter - Boy Saviour! -_ _there with him?_' But one of the things that really ate up the pages were sensationalist articals on – '_Dumbledore's Killers!'_ - Severus Snape and … Draco Malfoy.

The _Daily Prophet _photograph of Snape showed his sallow face repeatedly trying to turn itself away from the viewer. In contrast, Malfoy glared up out of the frame looking like he might bite you, either that or he'd burst into tears and run away. Harry had a feeling it was one of Colin Creevey's photographs, taken of Malfoy after one Quidditch loss too many.

The headlines and articals on Malfoy had been almost glamourising, almost as though they were advertising him as a shiny new product: _'Brilliant but evil, Draco Malfoy achieved what no other has done – he got the Death Eaters into Hogwarts!_' Just lately they had moved onto his personal life – _'Rich-boy Malfoy broke a string of hearts at Hogwarts! His charming but ruthless lothario ways saw scores of girls taken up and dropped … devastated girls could regularly be seen sobbing in the corridors …' _

It was all complete rubbish! Harry thought it was up there with that drivel in fourth-year about he, Hermione, Viktor Krum and love potions. He'd been snooping on Draco Malfoy enough times with the Marauders Map to know that if Malfoy had been manipulating females - well, females who hadn't turned out to be Crabbe and Goyle in disguise - he certainly hadn't been doing anything that had shown up on a map! And how could the _Daily Prophet_ shamelessly promote Malfoy as some rich, stonkingly successful bird-puller when they had already reported that the Ministry of Magic had frozen the Malfoy funds?

Not that reality was ever allowed to get in the way of a good story. To cash-in, a leprechaun 'music promoter' had set up a wizard boy-band: _Drop Dead Malfoy_. Four, young, pretty-faced, boy-wizards wearing silver-tinsel wigs and sneers; they were a huge success with lots of besotted wizarding girls, all wailing, screaming and sobbing after fantasy boys who didn't really exist.

Harry knew that the reporting on Draco Malfoy was unfair: Malfoy was not that good-looking, as to being 'brilliant but evil', he was not that smart, and if Harry was forced to admit it – Malfoy was not that guilty.

Apart from Draco Malfoy himself, Harry Potter was the only human being alive who knew that, on that tower-top with Professor Dumbledore a helpless target, Malfoy had been lowering his wand when the Death Eaters had burst in. It had been plain that Malfoy was under the ultimate duress to kill the Professor - his own life and the lives of his parents were forfeit to Voldemort if he did not - but even with that, given an offer from the Professor that there might be another way out, Malfoy had begun lowering his wand.

In those few seconds of grace, Malfoy might not have been ready to do a running-jump to stand shoulder to shoulder with the good-guys, but he'd been about to abandon the bad ones.

Not even Ron and Hermione knew that. If it got out about Malfoy lowering his wand, Harry thought that the blond boy might very well be killed – by his own side. Harry didn't hate Draco Malfoy, he felt a shred of pity for him, instead he saved all his hate up for Snape, the man who had murdered Dumbledore when Draco Malfoy was never going to. Harry saved all the hate up for Snape, the one who was Voldemort's 'most faithful servant'; Voldemort, the beast who would live forever unless stopped …

Abruptly, heart pumping, he turned on his heel and grimly commenced hurling things into his trunk: weighing scales, his cauldron, books …

He halted as he was about to hurl in a heavy, stiff-backed volume: this one really was a photograph album, it was the wizard-photograph album which Hagrid had painstakingly pieced together of Harry's mum and dad.

Harry treasured it but he half-dreaded it too: it was one of the few things he had of his parents whilst being a painful reminder of all he had lost. He tentatively opened it, turning the pages toward the photograph that he treasured best but which upset him the most: the photo of his parents' wedding day with his mum, dad and Sirius. It was the only photo he had of all three of them together, and the only photo he had of Sirius at all. Sirius, Harry's Godfather, had spent twelve years falsely imprisoned in Azkaban, only finding the spirit to escape when he knew he must to rescue Harry, and then later dying while rescuing Harry again in the Department of Mysteries –

Harry snapped the album shut and stuffed it down the side of the trunk for safe-keeping. He would not think about the Department of Mysteries, he would not think of how Voldemort had led him there with a false trail and of how Sirius had been killed when he had then come to rescue Harry. And if he did think of it – well, it had all been Voldemort's fault! Voldemort had led him there, tricked him – he'd only gone there with the best of intentions - and Bellatrix Black had shot the spell that had done for Sirius! And okay, yes, Harry had been rash in heedlessly bolting after the false trail when Hermione had begged him not to and he had shouted her down but –

He froze again as an edition of the _Daily Prophet_ slid off a toppling pile on his chest of drawers and landed on the floor, open at its centre-page.

Photographs of Ginny Weasley were printed all over it.

The story of them 'going out' had broken the moment school had ended, with about half the kids deciding to make some money by selling 'exclusives'.

Photographs of her at Hogwarts, photographs of her by the lake, photographs of her playing Quidditch, hair streaming heroically in the wind '…_ Ginny's brothers, Fred and George Weasley of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, reported in an exclusive to the Daily Prophet that flame-haired Ginny uses Wonder Witch products_ … _The famous couple do respect their privacy! __No-one has yet interviewed Harry, and Ginny has refused to speak – but rest assured, when she does the Daily Prophet will get the scoop on what's really going on!_'

The _Daily Prophet_ was obsessed with the topic. Harry bitterly thought that the only way the _Daily Prophet_ could have it any better was if it unearthed some laughable story of hopeless unrequited attraction from - _Dumbledore's Murderer!_ – Draco Malfoy for – _Gryffindor Golden Girl!_ - Ginny Weasley.

There were even more photos of Ginny Weasley taken during the Summer holidays as she'd visited Diagon Alley. Harry thought they must have been touched up because he didn't remember her ever wearing that much make-up, or her hair ever being that straight and sleek. She seemed to be wearing different clothes in each photo too – really fashionable stuff, with short skirts and knee-boots. In the moving photographs she clearly knew that the camera was on her yet her mouth was small and unsmiling. With hair flowing, skirt rippling, boots kicking and wearing what looked to be very fashionable Muggle-style sunglasses that took up half her face, it was as though part of her liked the attention whilst another part was very uncomfortable.

On the same page, Harry saw that the _Daily Prophet_ was running one of its competitions. '_Be like Ginny! Win your own Pygmy Puff! Sales of the cute little fluffballs have rocketed since it became known that style-setter Ginny has one. Supplies can hardly keep up but the Daily Prophet has three – yes, THREE! – for the first three young witches or wizards who …' _

Harry looked at the photo of a Pygmy Puff: a furball with big eyes and a vaguely mean-looking little mouth. He definitely couldn't see the attraction but he thought the _Daily Prophet_ must be out to get every kid in the wizard country to have one! He looked back to the artical on Ginny Weasley.

'_Pureblood Ginny, the one bright thing on Harry's horizon, brings a breath of fresh air wherever she goes. As the Girl Who Got Harry she has become a style-leader among teenaged witches who see a girl their own age being a figure of independence and strength. Close personal friend of the couple, Colin Creevey, gave an exclusive to your reporter: 'I think what he likes about her is that she didn't spend ages scheming to get him.' In a further comment, Colin jokes, 'He fancied her for years, it was obvious. He always pretended to ignore her when she spoke to him, and he barely spoke to her or looked at her, but that's how you can tell a boy's interested can't you - when he's scared to be caught looking at a girl?' _

Harry grimly recommenced hurling things into his trunk. Telling himself he knew exactly where he was going, he painfully stubbed a toe on a heavy Gringotts money sack that sat on the floor. Wincing and hopping about, he collapsed on the bed, holding his foot.

He had emptied his parents' account at Gringotts yesterday.

Getting the money out had been like wrestling trolls.

"Sir should be leaving _more_ of his money in the Bank, not less! Sir should be putting _all_ his precious things in the Bank – _that's what a bank's for: guarding precious things! _Look, Sir - we even train our own Security Trolls!"

At that, Harry had been waved in the direction of what he had thought were two badly carved statues but which had actually proved to be two unformed and armed trolls. When Harry had looked dubious, the goblins had offered, "One of our _special_ accounts, one our _anonymous_ accounts that we offer to select young wizards when they come Of Age. You even get a password! A bit like being a spy, Sir! If you've got one of our special accounts there's nothing _anyone_ can do to stop you from accessing your money in case of … _difficulties."_

When it became clear that Harry only wanted to empty the Potter account and not the high-security Black one, all talk of 'special offers' had been abruptly dropped and the rest of the visit had gone as Harry expected: hair raising high-speed cart journeys over bottomless crevasses, low growlings from mysterious monsters, vault-doors that sucked you inside – the usual. The only smudge on Gringotts' reputation had been a break-in to a high security vault six years ago. That had been played down by the Goblins, but no-one ever had found out how anyone had gotten in …

Harry had been accompanied by a goblin called Griphook – Harry suspected he may have been the same goblin who had escorted he and Hagrid on Harry's first visit. Griphook had asked Harry if he wanted to 'by-pass security' and pay 'an unofficial visit' to the Black vault: number 711 in the high security area. "Of course, it was only a suggestion," Griphook had said slyly as Harry had looked very doubtful. He had then straightened and looked a lot more like a Gringotts goblin should, "No need for Sir to give it any further consideration."

On the way to and from the bank, Harry had hurriedly shot past Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, hat pulled low over his head.

He wasn't avoiding anyone, he told himself, he just didn't feel like company, that's all …

Another Daily Prophet slid from the toppling pile on the chest of drawers and Harry's heart sank, it had fallen open upon yet more stuff about Ginny Weasley. This years' O.W.L. results had just been published – the remaining exams had been postponed after Dumbledore's death but not cancelled – and someone at the Ministry had leaked Ginny's grades: two Ds for Dreadful, a P for Poor and the rest only 'Acceptable'. Without really wanting to, Harry scanned the print … '_Acceptables are respectable results for a girl, Ginny knows it doesn't pay for a girl to be too smart!_ … _Romilda Vane, a Hogwarts pupil, said: 'She got nothing better than Acceptable? No wonder, seeing how she spent the last five years scheming to get Harry Potter instead of paying attention in lessons! I'm surprised she even did as well as 'Acceptable'!' Colin Creevey – friend of the famous couple – says that Romilda tried to get Harry for herself. Are we just a little jealous Romilda? … Remember now, boys and girls: 'Greatness inspires envy, envy engenders spite, spite spawns lies'.' _

Harry rolled his eyes and flung the paper aside but then simply caught sight of the results of the '_Win A Pygmy Puff!'_ competition in a later edition. The winner was a little girl called Fenella Dupely; there was a big picture of her clutching her very own Pygmy Puff. Harry thought the Pygmy Puff looked faintly cross … '_Young Fenella sums up the hopes and wishes of thousands of little girls all over the wizard country when she says 'I want to be just like Ginny' …' _

Ginny Weasley, Ron's little sister, was even more famous than Harry these days: she was famous for being Harry Potter's Girlfriend.

Annoyed, Harry shoved some necessaries into a big shoulder bag: Invisibility Cloak, some clothes, spare pyjamas … his wand was already down his sock, he kept it on him constantly these days. He took a wodge of money from the Gringotts sack and poured the rest of the coins under his loose floorboard. He chucked Hedwig under her chin, fed her some owl-treats and told her to fly to The Burrow, saying that he was following on; he gave her a note to Ron about it. He forced the rest of his belongings into his trunk and locked it. He looked at it. Might as well leave it here, no point in dragging it all the way to The Burrow and then all the way back again when he got his flat.

He bunged Hedwig's cage on top of his trunk and one of it's wire struts got bent. Harry shrugged: no matter, Hermione could fix it later, Hermione could fix up anything.

Harry knew it was quickest to Apparate but … well, he hadn't had a broom-ride in ages. And okay, so it was late afternoon – almost early evening - but he had his Invisibility Cloak, he could ride under that, no-one would see him. Besides, it might be for the best: the Aurors and the Order who were undoubtedly watching Privet Drive might notice the magic of Apparition but he could take off and fly invisibly without a spell. It would take longer to get to The Burrow, that was a fact …

He looked about him; with everything packed, the bin stuffed to bursting and the bed made, the room looked quite bare, as if no-one had ever actually lived there. Disgusted, Harry almost turned on his heel and left right then but he remembered that he hadn't _Incedio'd_ the contents of the waste-paper bin. There would be little point in carefully packing away every last little magic thing if he were to blithely leave behind a bin-load of back-copies of the _Daily Prophet_ with its shrieking headlines about wizarding issues and photographs that moved.

He pointed his wand but saw that he was aiming to shoot at the blond, surly Malfoy whose picture glared up at him, lifting it's eyebrow, sneering. Harry took a breath, steadied his wand, and aimed to shoot again. The Malfoy in the photo held a defensive expression now and stared up at the about-to-shoot Harry.

"Oh - _alright!"_ Harry ripped the photo out of the page and, half-annoyed at himself, stuffed it into his jacket pocket.

Before he left, his last action was to straighten, aim, and shoot an _Incendio_ at the rest of the bin without even a second thought.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: (Chapter 02)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Chapter 2 

"Be still, Draco," his Aunt tried to placate him even though she was clearly nervous herself, "I am sure all is well."

Draco Malfoy was almost hysterical with tension. He had been abruptly brought to the Death Eater Manor and being dragged summarily to the Dark Lord was rarely a sign of favour. It often signaled peril – especially for any who harboured secrets.

In the weeks since the tower-top … _incident_ – Malfoy didn't like to dwell too heavily on the details of it – he had been walking a very narrow cliff path in a very high wind: fighting to maintain his balance at every step.

The _incident_ …

Malfoy hurriedly shoved the memory from him and snapped back to the highly worrying present.

He was aware that he had displeased the Dark Lord in failing to kill, aware that Father was still in jail, keenly aware that neither he nor Mother were truly safe following his failure. The one chance to extract his family cleanly from this entire mess had been lost on that tower-top, leaving him with a huge secret instead …

The secret that he'd been lowering his wand. And the only reason he knew it was still a secret, was because he was still alive.

Mother and he had hidden at Snape's – his mother was grateful but Malfoy resented having to be in Snape's debt. Malfoy had a secret safe place, but he hadn't managed to find a way to get Mother away from Spinners End without raising any suspicions, to get her away without Snape being alerted. After all, he knew that Snape was a true Death Eater - he had seen him murder the Head of Hogwarts.

Sick with apprehension, he had thought he had let her down because he had _not_ killed, but eavesdropping at the top of the gloomy, narrow stairs one day … '_Cissy,_ _Draco failed to kill Dumbledore but he succeeded in allowing the Death Eaters into Hogwarts, so all is not lost. And if the Dark Lord wishes that Draco kill, be glad that he will surely have other chances' _… '_Be glad, Bella? Be glad that my son would become a murderer? Do you think I want his soul torn?' _His mother's tone had risen even further –_ 'The Dark Lord set Draco an impossible task, Bella! That he achieved even part of it was almost a miracle. The Dark Lord will kill us all: me, Lucius, Draco – maybe even you! That was always his plan!'_

Now he didn't know what would be worse: killing or not killing! Being a Death Eater or not being a Death Eater!

And the Dark Lord was the greatest Leglimens, everyone knew that. Malfoy had pushed his Occlumens ability to the limit just to stay ahead this far. Mostly his tool had been the simple one of not meeting the Dark Lord's eye – common enough among the Death Eaters. It was hard to look at him in any case: it was the whole cracked-green-skin thing – not to mention the red eyes. Something had gone really wrong over the last year: the Dark Lord's skin was peeling and blistered, suppurating cracks ran through it, and an unclean tinge of gangrene washed over all.

He had always looked ghastly but he was now getting _worse!_

And the_ smell!_

It was like he was rotting! A rotting corpse that wouldn't die!

How could someone look that bad and not be dead?

How could someone look that bad, have a body that broken, and not be making every effort to somehow magic-up a new one? He was the greatest wizard who ever lived, wasn't he? Wasn't he even _trying _to fix that body of his?

And now Malfoy didn't even have all of his 'other people', his 'better people' to help him – the ones he'd bragged about to Snape in school that time. Okay, he had Aunt Bellatrix – well he _hoped_ he did, she had, after all, been _'close'_ to the Dark Lord – but Aunt Bellatrix was fragile to say the least. Who could really say for sure where she'd choose to put her mark when it came to it?

And that helper he'd had at Hogwarts – well, a helper after a little bit of persuasion – they were no use to him now. In fact, all told they were a danger if they started blabbing to the wrong people. In fact, they were a danger full-stop! They shouldn't even be at that damned school! Had Dumbledore been _completely_ deranged? And then there was that 'Death Eater resource' which he and Aunt Bellatrix had been 'utilising'. But the Death Eaters knew about that, so using it solely for his own ends would be difficult. Well, at least he had a house -

"_Draco!_ I'm talking to you!"

Malfoy started at Snape's words and then twisted away from his ex-Potions Professor, who was the only other person in the room. He spoke to his Aunt instead. "What's_ he_ doing here?"

"It," Bellatrix was not even going to accord Snape human-status, "has wormed its way to the position of 'Most Trusted'!" she snorted.

Malfoy flung a disgusted look at Snape. "Well I suppose killing some pathetic old weirdy-beardy will do that for you."

Bellatrix gasped, placing a restraining hand on her nephew, "Draco, the death of the Dark Lord's enemy was something to be welcomed. We must all be in agreement on that."

"My father's still in jail! What good did it do me?"

"Draco, calm yourself." Snape's tone was now that of the schoolmaster, "The Dark Lord has brought you here to offer you a mission. If you are sensible, you will accept it."

"Why? The last one he gave me involved having to kill one of the world's most powerful wizards and gain entry to an impregnable castle!"

"Well, Draco, at least that statement has the virtue of honesty."

Malfoy and Bellatrix whirled to find Voldemort standing in the doorway.

Snape stilled before turning.

"Do not be petulant, Draco. You at least have the sense to be truthful and un-scheming – even if it is shown by your intemperate nature. You are angry because you are fearful, Draco. And that, at least, is frank."

Draco Malfoy looked away, panicked, not meeting the Dark Lord's eye.

There was a silence. Voldemort turned to Snape who was now utterly unblinking.

"The Blacks have always had a rash and romantic streak, Severus: _operatic_. Unfortunate, but there it is. As Draco has his mother's blood, I suppose I cannot expect him to be very much different." Voldemort turned to Malfoy again, but his voice now descended into chill. "Draco: you _failed_. You failed to kill Dumbledore. Your father has failed me. Your Aunt has failed me. Your Mother has failed me. Your family is thick about with failure. A redemption is due."

There was a tense silence from aunt and nephew.

"My Lord," Snape spoke up, sounding tentative. He seemed to consider every word before uttering it. "Dumbledore had been Draco's Headmaster for six years, taking him as his first kill would always be hugely difficult for him."

"But you killed Dumbledore, Severus. You had known him for at least sixteen years, had him trusting to the fact that you were a spy for him, he believed you good, yet you managed to kill him."

There was a pause - "Sire, I served you before I ever taught at Hogwarts, and I am not seventeen years old."

All of which was actually true.

"Severus Snape is a liar!" Bella threw herself forward. "Severus Snape is a liar and a deceiver! He is a spy who plots against you! Snape wouldn't let our forces kill Potter when escaping from the Tower. He made them run on and leave the boy! He could have captured Sybill Trelawney from Hogwarts all last year, but he didn't!"

Snape remained completely sanguine; Voldemort spoke for him.

"The Death Eaters had wasted so much time on the tower that the Order were hot upon them as it was. Had they struggled to take Potter past the Apparition barrier they would have been caught. Trelawney had no memory of the prophecy; for Severus to deliver her would have betrayed his position for nothing." His tone grew more contemplative, "However …now that Dumbledore is dead and Severus' position is revealed anyway … well, there are ways with memories …"

Snape gave no sign of reacting to those last words but instead looked aside at the clenched Bellatrix as Malfoy stood nervously by them. "Bellatrix, why don't you at least try accusing me of something a little different? Why don't you try saying that I'm a -" he turned his placid gaze to Voldemort's, "a - now what would I have to be? A _quadruple_ agent for Dumbledore, working on a plan so convoluted that no-one can actually follow it, with my purposes unknown and my motivations non-existent?"

Snape looked back at Voldemort and the gazes of both locked. The silence was broken as both, at precisely the same moment, began to laugh.

"Of all of my Death Eaters," remarked Voldemort, "Severus had not been forewarned of the attack or of Draco's task, and yet he was the one who did not disappoint."

"_What?_ He knew _nothing?_" screeched Bellatrix. "But he did know! He knew that Draco had been charged to kill Dumbledore. He even took an Unbreakable Vow to kill Dumbledore if Draco could not!"

Malfoy shot a startled glance at Snape.

"Severus has already told me of the facts, Bellatrix. I have seen into his memories of the Unbreakable Vow: Severus knew nothing upon your arrival, he knew no more than what you and Narcissa told him. He simply led yourself and your sister into telling him ever more, while in return he gave you nothing."

"But he did know – he said -"

"He said: 'I will' to the Vow: _watch over my son, Draco, as he attempts to fulfill the Dark Lord's wishes _…? Or when he said, 'I will' to the Vow: _and will you, to the best of your ability, protect him from harm _…? Or was it when he said 'I will' to the Vow: _and, should it prove necessary, if it seems Draco will fail, will you carry out the deed the Dark Lord has ordered Draco to perform _…?" Voldemort's high laughter splintered. "Severus fooled you, Bella, which is why he was my greatest spy and you never could be."

"Yes, the death of Dumbledore." Voldemort rolled those words around his mouth as though he savoured their flavour, "not quite to the plan I had formed, I wanted Draco to kill him."

Malfoy shifted uncomfortably and Bella swallowed, then she cried out, "If Snape really knew nothing, how did he know to kill Dumbledore on the Tower? He must have known!"

Snape looked at Bellatrix as though her question had revealed her to be a complete idiot. "Do you mean, Bellatrix, how could I tell that Draco's secret plan was to kill Dumbledore when the only evidence I had was an armed Draco, an unarmed Dumbledore and a gaggle of Death Eaters pressing Draco to kill him? Why, now that you mention it I can't think of how I knew – it must have been by magic."

"Draco owes and he now has a chance to repay." Voldemort gave a flickering smile. He turned back to Malfoy, "I require that you search out two objects for me: a locket and a cup. The objects were stolen, almost certainly taken by Dumbledore, but if he did not have them, he would have been looking for them. He is dead now, of course, and their whereabouts are now unknown."

_A locket? A cup?_

Bella started, face pale, gaze anxiously flicking between Malfoy and Voldemort, "But if they are lost and there are no clues … how …?"

"I bet Potter knows," Malfoy rushed his words out, trying to sound useful.

"Why would Potter would have any idea? He may not be worth following," interjected Snape.

"Are you saying I'm a failure before I've even begun?" yelped Malfoy. "If Dumbledore told anyone, it was Potter!" Malfoy suddenly sounded bitter and petty and somehow very young. "Dumblesnore doted on Scarface. Fiddling the house-points system to make sure Gryffindor got the cup every year. Lauding hero-boy. I think he was probably the only pupil Dumbledore actually _spoke_ to! I think the only time he used _my_ name was when he was begging for his life on the tower -" Malfoy's voice stumbled slightly but recovered, "begging for his life on the - suddenly, after six years, it's all Draco-this and Draco-that and - "

Voldemort viewed him with sudden, sharp speculation.

"My Lord," Snape interjected, "is there anything else you would like found?"

Distracted, Voldemort looked to Snape, appraising, "Yes, but I rather fear it is beyond Draco's abilities."

He waved his wand an the image of a silver and gold box, about the size of a brick, appeared. He gave a theatrical pause before speaking, "A relic of one of the greatest wizards of all, an object given to me by _Adolphus Grindelwald himself. _I was forced to abandon it that night at Godric's Hollow, it is now important that I get it back."

"Well then, I should be about searching for it."

Bellatrix flicked a spiteful glance at Snape, peeved at his ever-growing favour.

"I took it there for use with the Potter brat," continued Voldemort, bitterly, "but now I need it for reasons other than that of simply killing an irritating teenager."

Malfoy jolted, and Voldemort stared at him again. Malfoy rattled on nervously.

"So, about Potter. There's that big Weasley wedding coming up. He'll be there. I could start there, or maybe get onto the school train somehow?"

"No. I want no disruptions to the wedding or on the Hogwarts Express. I have plans to rise and conquer. I want all to be calm. I want parents to have no cause to keep their children back from school. My friend, Mortlake, has made efforts and I require that the children of Hogwarts reach their destination …" Voldemort became more considering, "The Potter boy is a problem. _The Chosen One? _I rather think I shall have to murder Potter. He is protected, but there are people he cares for who may be less so. One or two quiet 'disappearances' after the children have reached Hogwarts would not cause any widespread increase in vigilance …"

Malfoy stiffened.

Voldemort pinned him with a look, "Do you have any doubt in me, Draco?"

"No!" The startled Malfoy shook his head, swallowing taking an instinctive step back, "I – it's just that -"

_He just wanted his family out of this mess!_

But Mother had said that she didn't want him to kill … and if he somehow beat Potter but Potter truly was the one who could stop the Dark Lord and thus possibly save his family …?

Malfoy knew that he had to be still now. He had to be circumspect. He had to control himself. Father always had told him that he was indiscreet, too given to ostentatious display, too given to running around, doing impressions, making the other Slytherins laugh - too given to what Father had termed, with cold distaste, as 'an excess of vivacity'.

_You may feel that that you have life enough for two, Draco, but kindly refrain from inflicting it upon your family name._

"Father -" Malfoy's voice was a croak, he swallowed hard. God – but would the Dark Lord just stop all that hovering about! "Father - I want my Father out of Azkaban. The Dementors are gone but there are all those rumours about the Ministry working on memory-wipes, things they can do so you might as well be Dementored. And that new Minister, Scrimgeour, isn't exactly Amelia Bones. He'd definitely do it and -"

"Be silent, Draco." The gaze of Voldemort's horrid, flickering-red eyes traveled over Malfoy's smooth face. He then spoke with a note of curiosity. "I notice you turn your face away. Do you find me unsettling to look upon, Draco?"

Malfoy gulped and swallowed - _Me and a million others_.

"Do you think I shall always look like this, Draco?" The words flicked out like a snake's tongue as he indicated his body again. "One day soon I shall have a face you might admire for it's symmetry, it's crisp lines, its balance of light and shade … You see, I knew that although I would live forever, I would age. I made more than one experiment in immortality. One keeps me alive and soon another will return me to health and strength and youth. It was always planned so. One day soon, Draco," Voldemort's whisper was almost intimate, "I shall be _perfect_."

Voldemort approached Malfoy slowly and Malfoy froze with a sudden, repressed disgust.

"Your father is still alive because years ago he pledged his fealty to me utterly. He pledged the greatest of sacrifices."

Away from him, Snape slid Voldemort a single concerned glance.

Voldemort gazed at Malfoy, serene. "Now, prove your worth: be my seeker Draco. Be perfect for me. Find those objects."

Later, with Bellatrix and Malfoy gone, the Death Eaters huddled in small groups as they took coffee in the mildewed library. The Dark Lord had said a lot, they had much to consider, what might it all mean for the future?

In contrast, Severus Snape stood alone at the far end of the room, staring out of a tall French window into the dark: a stranger in a very strange land indeed.


	3. Chapter 3

Title: (Chapter 03)   
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 

**Chapter 3**

As the evening closed in, Harry knew that various members of the Order would be up the wall with rage about his unescorted flying to The Burrow – but it was his life, he'd take the risk if he felt like it.

It had been fun at first, he hadn't been on a broom in what felt like ages and the sense of freedom and feeling of adventure were refreshing. But after a while … The strap of the shoulder bag started to bite and the bag's weight left him unbalanced. The Invisibility Cloak was a hamper too: as he flew out of town and over the countryside, the slippery fabric started to slide about on him and get caught by the wind. More than once he had been sure that it had wafted up and shown his seemingly disconnected legs floating about in mid-air.

He had also become worried that anyone looking directly up from under the Cloak might see him; he hadn't thought about that when he'd set off. To maintain secrecy he tried flying in cloud-banks but after a couple of scares of only just avoiding birds, he abandoned that. He had ended up flying below the clouds and above the tree-tops, struggling on a wonkily balanced broom and fighting to keep the slippery Invisibility Cloak on.

Hours passed. It seemed to take forever to get anywhere. He knew the way – well, he thought he did, after all he'd been there by flying-car five years ago – but he didn't recall it having been such a long journey then.

Now the summer sky held the silent, pink, stillness of evening – even the birds were landing and going to sleep. The sun sailed down. Each time Harry took a worried glance to check, it seemed to have fallen much further toward the horizon than it should. With increasing frequency he nervously scanned the layout of the land below. He should see _something_ he knew! He _was_ going in the right direction, wasn't he? The truth was that this whole thing was turning out to be a bit like that nightmare flying-car journey he and Ron had once rashly taken to Hogwarts. Wouldn't it have been better – _there!_ He felt a flush of relief. Finally, a landmark he knew!

Like the instinctive flier he was, he veered and swooped toward the sight, a grin on his face. No need for worries, things had turned out fine!

The landmark was a hill rising out of a meadowed plain, distinctively shaped, no roads leading up it, just a footpath. Harry had recognised it from the time he had Portkeyed to the Quidditch World Cup: Stoatshead Hill. He knew where Ottery St Catchpole and The Burrow were now!

Below him, the parish was set out in an area of patchwork fields and clumps of trees. From the air, Ottery St Catchpole looked like one of those miniature villages made out of Muggle Lego: it was so perfect it looked slightly artificial. He'd never actually been to the village itself, but it seemed to Harry though to be the perfect ideal: a place of _Tea Shoppes_ and village church halls and afternoon cream teas with Earl Grey in the pot. He wished he'd been brought up here like the Weasley children had, instead of having been dragged up at Privet Drive.

The Weasleys were his dream-family, the family he'd never had. Okay, so they'd had a bit of an ugly falling-out with Percy, but Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were unassailably together, Bill and Charlie were handsome elder brothers, the twins were funny and always playing practical jokes, Ron was like his brother, whilst Ron's little sister, Ginny Weasley –

Harry abruptly swerved his broom, practically landing it on its nose on the village green.

No need to go to The Burrow just yet.

But … he did have to go, where else was there? Even so, as he set off across the green and up the lane to The Burrow, his spirits dropped as the house came fully into view, hoving into sight in the thickening gloom.

As the night closed in, the farmstead – with its high enclosing wall – looked a little like a small fortress: its inhabitants scared of the outside. Harry had never viewed it that way before, and suddenly the prospect of going to The Burrow seemed very depressing.

Maybe he just shouldn't go? Maybe he should just turn around and go back to Privet Drive – even if it was too dark to fly? After all, he could always Apparate! Then his shoulders sank. Thinking about turning-tail and Apparating back to Privet Drive at this time of night, was he? He finally admitted it to himself: had been putting off going to The Burrow for weeks and this was just a last-ditch attempt at it.

Well, there was nothing for it, he'd have to go in. He straightened and marched up to the gate.

As he approached, an animal rustled in the hedge, it was heavy dusk now and the foxes would be out soon. The five-bar gate squeaked as he jerked it open and at the sound a light snapped on in the porch: someone had been waiting there. Almost immediately the front door shoved open with a scrape and a blurred figure came racing toward him, calling his name in a high, girlish voice. "Harry, we got your note with Hedwig! We've all been waiting for you! Mum's been going spare! Where have you _been?" _

It was Ginny Weasley, hurtling across the yard from where she had been waiting in the dark by herself in the porch. He was nearly knocked back by the impact as she hit him. Her breath sounded almost sobbing, "Oh Harry, this is so _stupid!_ This whole 'stay away from me because of Voldemort thing', it just isn't _working_ Harry! The papers are full of us. No-one even knows we were supposed to have split up anyway – there's no point in us being apart, Harry, _there's no_ _point!"_

It was all a struggle. Her hands were everywhere. Her face was wet against his chest. Her hair was like cobwebs. Somehow the Firebolt had become jammed between them and his bag was bumping against her, pushing her off. Her scrabbling hands fought for purchase. Unbalanced and grasping, she snatched out, her hand clamping onto his bare forearm.

Harry felt a hot prickling jolt all over.

He jerked a look down at her hand. In the faded light it looked like a dying starfish trying to cling onto a rock. She squeezed against him and he wished – _he wished_ _she wouldn't do that! _

He took an instinctive step back, lurching away from her, pushing her off, and in the confusion he could have sworn that some horrified recognition flashed across her face but it was gone when he looked back. Instead she stumbled after him, trying to close the distance, her face now an expression of some desperate need. Almost panicky, Harry held a hand out as though trying to stop the traffic. Mere inches from him, she lurched to a halt, gazing up at him, her face pained and washed bone-white in the dying light.

Squarish, with a blunt jaw-line, he didn't find her face ugly but he didn't find her beautiful either; when she set her jaw you could clearly see that she was the twins' sister. She shared their short, slightly stocky, frame – all three taking after their mother. As she halted, her expression anguished, he finally had to admit the truth to himself: he had avoided coming to the Weasleys, he had avoided going out with Ron and Hermione, he had avoided the Quidditch Cup match, he had avoided Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes that time on Diagon Alley because … he had not wanted to risk meeting Ginny Weasley.

A horrible recognition settled upon him: she was his nationally-acknowledged girlfriend, they were in all the papers, and … he did not want her. Worse, not only did he not want her but, seeing the quivering, screwed up, tremulous, expression on her face, he now felt vaguely _repulsed_ by her. God – the thought of _kissing _her! Back at Hogwarts, they way he'd – his mind tried to slam down on that avenue of thought but couldn't – _the way he'd been snogging the breath out of her any time he could grab her! _

Horrified, he stared down at her in the dark as she looked up at him, eyes big in her small, pale face.

_How could he have?_ _She looked about ten years old!_ _She wasn't even Of Age! __What had he been thinking!? _

Everyone must have seen him behaving like that – everyone! He recalled that even Hermione had stopped 'beaming' and had quietly become uncomfortable, telling him off for 'stopping her from studying'. With hindsight, what she'd really meant was: _get your grubby mitts off her, Mr. All-Hands! _

He was horror-struck. Mere weeks ago, Ginny Weasley had been the most gorgeous thing on the planet to him, irresistible, the thought of any other boy being with her leaving him burning with a raging jealousy and now … now she was back to being Ron's little sister!

But now they were all over the newspapers as a couple!

Harry screwed his eyes shut and clenched his fists as he fought down something almost hysterical within him - _how was he going to get out of this shambles without making himself look totally stupid?_

A twig snapped behind him and he and Ginny swiveled toward a flash of light which caught them wide-eyed.

"_Gottcha!"_

The cry came from two men who leapt from the bushes – the foxes had appeared alright – one brandishing a big wizard-camera and the other a snappy little Quick Quotes Quill. Each wore a grubby mac and a trilby; they cawed to each other. "Let's see Rita Skeeter top this one! We've beaten her to the exclusive this time! Pictures _and _quotes!"

"We're made, sunshine! Minted! I knew hanging around this dump would pay. The first photo of them together outside Hogwarts. Quotes of them admitting their love for each other. Quotes proving that them refusing to be seen together was just a ploy. _Worth a bleedin' fortune in international syndication, this is!"_

"_OI!"_ Bill Weasley's powerful bellow filled the air as figures poured out of the Weasley's front door.

"_Ginny!"_ Mrs. Weasley's alarmed cry rang out as she ran clumsily across the enclosure; stout and short-legged she was yards behind any of her sons. She almost cannoned into Harry, breathing heavily as she drew to a ragged halt near her daughter. She shot Harry a sharp look before rounding on Ginny, "What do you think you were doing, running out by yourself!" She put an arm around her daughter, still giving Harry that very sharp look, half pulling Ginny to her, half shoving her back in the direction of the kitchen.

Swiveling on his heel and looking about, Harry saw that the Weasley's intervention was all too late. By the time Ron, the twins and Bill had thundered to a halt at the gate, the quotes and photos … '_See page three for more_ _pictures of Harry and Ginny's breathless moonlight tryst! Read their desperate plighting of their deep love for each other!_ … _Harry and Ginny only appeared to stay apart because of fears for her safety …' _were set to be plastered over next day's papers for anyone to read.


	4. Chapter 4

Title: (Chapter 04)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13   
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 

**Chapter 4**

The entire party stumbled into the Weasley's untidy kitchen and there was a confused melee as an angry Mrs. Weasley – Harry could never bring himself to call her 'Molly' – took her temper out on the two absent pressmen. "They should be sent to Azkaban!" - she was clearly a little on-edge, even for her - "Wait till your father gets back from the Ministry! And why on earth did you fly, Harry? You could have just Apparated!"

"Now, Mum," that was Bill, "why don't you make us all a nice, hot, soothing drink?"

"Yeah Mum, be sure to make yourself two," called Fred from where he and George were now sitting at the kitchen table.

In the press of bodies, Ron sidled up to Harry, muttering, "Just keep your head down mate. Mum's driving herself round the bend organizing the wedding." Harry heard Ron's voice dip even further, "She says it'll be a reflection upon the entire Weasley family, so it's got to be 'perfect'."

Harry needed no further urging, he was wrestling with the dreadful revelation he'd just had at the garden gate: he'd been snogging the tonsils off Ginny Weasley for three weeks straight at the end of last term and now he didn't want her?

Oh God - what would the Weasleys say? What would _Ron_ say? Harry heard Mrs. Weasley banging pans down on the kitchen counter: never mind that – _what would Mrs. Weasley think!_ Harry could only concentrate on the horrifying thought that the Weasleys – the nearest thing to a real family he'd ever had – might take it badly if they found out he wanted nothing more to do with their only daughter after having picked her up and – and _used _her for grabbing, groping, hands-all-over-the-place snogging practice!

All that grabbing, groping and grasping – it was as though he'd been out of control!

She'd been some obsessive snog-target!

"GINNY!" 

Harry's head jerked up at Mrs. Weasley's bark. "Ginny will you come here and make yourself useful!"

Harry felt rather than saw – he was too nervous to look – that Ginny Weasley was standing at the sideboard with her back to him. Since coming into the kitchen she had been busying herself by fiddling about with bits of crockery. Now her shoulders were hunched, her head was dipped and her face was hidden behind curtains of hair. _"Ginny, will you just get over here!"_

"I'm _doing_ it, Mum!"

"And do _not_ show your temper to me – _Lady Vanity!"_ Mrs. Weasley shouted.

The crockery trembled slightly in Ginny's hands but she said nothing, her back still to the room. Harry was horrified. Rather than being on the verge of throwing one of her famous strops, Harry suddenly knew that Ginny Weasley was near to tears. She was very upset. _Oh God – she knows! At the gate - she realised! What if she says something? I'll be in so much trouble!_ Unwillingly taking-in Ginny's beaten appearance, Harry rocked under a fresh thought: just what kind of boy was he to behave like this? How could he obsess about a girl – and he couldn't lie to himself, he _had_ been obsessed with her! – take up with her and then, just because she was out of his sight for a few weeks, completely lose interest in her like she didn't matter? _Just what kind of shallow, thoughtless, awful boy was he?_

"Harry? – you alright?" Harry jolted at Ron's whisper. "You look a bit out of it, mate. Are you okay? That was a long flight you had, do you want to sit down?"

Harry stared at Ron and felt his mind go completely blank. What on earth could he possibly say to make this mess turn out alright?

"My nerves just can't take this!" Mrs. Weasley abruptly turned to face everyone. "That does it! I'm going to mix up some Draught of Peace for everyone! I need a solid night's sleep!" Harry thought she had then shot a lightning look in his direction. "And I _won't_ have anyone roving about the house in the dead of night!"

"Now, Mum," that was Bill again, he was talking carefully and slowly as though to an unpredictable animal that might claw at any moment, "you know you're very heavy handed with Draught of Peace."

"Yeah – we don't want to put you to any more effort than necessary, now do we Mum?" said Fred, gingerly moving to take a pan out of her hand and actually helping with the supper for once.

Harry's tongue seemed cleaved to the roof of his mouth, he couldn't think of a thing to say. From the corner of his eye he could see Ron looking at him, puzzled.

"Hermione's Apparated to London to pick up the self-sweeping confetti," Mrs. Weasley called to seemingly anyone who would listen. She abruptly turned to Harry, "She'll be back in a bit. I expect you were wondering where she'd gotten to, weren't you, Harry? You'll want to see Hermione, won't you Harry? I expect you'll be keen to spend the evening catching up with her when she gets back, won't you, Harry?"

To his shock, Harry realised he hadn't thought about Hermione at all, even though she was obviously not in the kitchen and normally was one of the first to greet him. The appalled realisation about Ginny Weasley had driven everything else from his mind.

"Oh! What have I been thinking!" Mrs. Weasley turned and aimed a concerned, slightly brittle smile at him. "You'll be wanting to put your things away and settle down before you have supper, won't you, Harry? Why don't you take your things upstairs and leave us to get on with our business in the kitchen, eh, Harry?"

Fred interjected with a leering tone, "Ginny'll help him get his stuff up!"

"_Shut up, Fred!"_ Mrs. Weasley sounded so tense that everyone turned and stared at her. She coloured and offered an explanation, "You'll stay here, Ginny. I need you to help with the supper!" She turned to Harry with a sudden, determined sweetness. "Go upstairs to put your things in your room, dear. You might want to spend some time up there, resting, mightn't you dear?"

"I – er …"

"I'll go with him, Mum," Ron stepped up and shouldered Harry's bag.

Over by the sideboard, Harry saw Ginny freeze, her back still to the room. Harry swallowed as he saw that Ron's gaze was now flickering between himself and the stiff Ginny.

Harry felt his insides ice up. Ron knew! Ron could tell! Ron was going to take him upstairs and kill him!

"Spoil-sport!" Fred cawed at Ron. "Trust you to ruin Harry and Ginny's fun!"

Harry couldn't get out of the kitchen fast enough as over his shoulder he heard Mrs. Weasley recommence screaming at Fred. The noise was guillotined as Ron kicked the kitchen door shut and the two boys mounted the stairs. Remembering Ron's grim expression, Harry hoped execution would be mercifully swift. Would Ron ever talk to him again after this?

"Those bloody idiots! They sold Malfoy that Peruvian Darkness Powder. Not that they'll admit it." Ron mimicked the twins' voices, "_We didn't sell any of that stuff to Malfoy – we never even sold him any through the post! We don't know how he got it_ - Never sold it to him – as if! What did Malfoy do, go to Peru and get some wholesale? He must have bought it in this country and Fred and George were the only suppliers! I wouldn't mind, but they're so full of themselves! Getting the rental on Zonko's old shop in Hogsmeade," he snorted, "expanding their empire!"

Harry's mind crashed about. Ron was angry at the twins over Malfoy and not angry at him? Did Ron not realise about he and Ginny? And if he didn't, could Harry keep it a secret – still get out of this somehow? And at that thought he was filled with a rush of disgust – was he aiming to deceive _Ron_ now? There was a silence as they tramped up the stairs and Harry felt an uncomfortable urge to fill it. "Maybe … maybe Malfoy got Crabbe or Goyle Polyjuiced-up as someone else, and sent one of them to buy it?"

Ron managed a short laugh as he hefted the money-laden bag, "Nah, can you imagine either of them even having the brains to count out the proper change? C'mon, Harry - Crabbe and Goyle were the two stupidest students Hogwarts ever had. Honest. They were the only two who got T for Troll in everything they ever took, first time round and re-takes too."

A few minutes later, Harry was in Ron's room having unpacked and with his Firebolt safely under his camp-bed. He had yaddered on about anything he could think of: Vanishing Cabinet? – '_Smashed to matchwood_.' Where did Malfoy get that necklace? – '_Some old lady bought it from Borgin and Burkes, paid cash for it and never left her name.' _

There was a silence and Harry desperately cast about for anything to say, "Fred bringing Angelina to the wedding?"

_Fred and Angelina? How desperate was he?_

"Nope, they were going out for a while but they drifted apart. He's dated a few girls since, but now he's going out with someone called Tanit - he raves over her. He met her at some magical goods sales convention. She's the one who put them in touch with the bloke who's their Pygmy Puff supplier – apparently the bloke who breeds 'em, he's her dad."

"George not bringing that Muggle girl who works in the village shop?" Harry blathered, hating himself for not being able to shut up.

"Who, Cathy? They split up. George's taken up with Evadne Fawcett now." Ron's voice lowered, "Mum's pretty relieved, she kept nagging at George, asking how Cathy could fit in, with her being a Muggle and all." Ron mimicked his mum's voice, _"How are you going to explain that you're a wizard George? It'll be a danger to you!" _He looked over at Harry, "You remember Evadne Fawcett? She was that Hufflepuff who tried to get past the Age Line and put her name in the Goblet. The same one who got caught snogging Archie Stebbins in that rosebush at the Yule Ball? From what I can make out, she and George just spend most of their time snogging. Anyway, the Fawcett's are a long-standing local wizarding family, so Mum's a lot more relaxed about it."

"How's - " Harry desperately thrashed about for something else to say, "how's it going with – with Remus and Tonks!"

_Remus and Tonks? God, that was even worse than Fred and Angelina! _

" … so I think it's a bit dead on it's feet, y'know?"

"Er … what?"

"Remus and Tonks. You know – you were asking? Mum was pleased that they'd got together and that Tonk's had 'got her man', but you don't need to be a genius to see that it isn't really working for Remus."

Harry started. Ron had finished answering his question. He needed another one now!

"How's it going? You know? With you and Hermione?"

If only he could just _Silencio_ himself!

Ron turned his back. "S'alright," he mumbled.

Ron's words were said in a rather odd tone and Harry almost froze. He looked up expecting to see Ron glaring at him but instead saw that Ron was now sitting on his bed, looking rather depressed. "It's things between me and Hermione, mate. She's getting a bit hyper to tell you the truth. It's that bloody _Malfoy_ thing. She knows she made a mistake in not believing you about Malfoy. Thing is, now she's even more determined to be in charge because she thinks if she can just control everything then there won't be any more mistakes."

Ron's shoulders slumped. "She's started taking photos of Crookshanks in case she 'loses' him, you know? It's as though she thinks that if she takes enough photos of him, she _can't_ lose him. She even brought him with her to The Burrow this time round. Mum doesn't like it of course – she doesn't like cats – but she puts up with it. But Hermione won't really _talk_ about things. She just rushes around in a frenzy, occupying herself with a lot of action about nothing. I've asked Bill about it and he says that Hermione's scared, but she's too scared to admit that she's scared."

All Harry's concerns about Ginny Weasley were driven out by one thing: Hermione was _scared?_ "Well … look, is she – if she doesn't want to do this Hor -" Harry checked himself, he didn't even want to mention the Horcruxes without checking the door, secrecy about them was paramount. After all. Voldemort didn't know they were looking for them, right? "If she doesn't want to help look for those _things_, she doesn't have to."

"No way, mate," Ron shook his head. "She might be scared, but if you try to leave her out of it, she'll throw a fit. And then she'd just run behind our backs and search by herself anyway. Besides, can you imagine us two thickies without her? She's just a bit on edge because of the press attention on you and Ginny. Dunno why, but it really seems to upset her."

There was a silence, then, tentatively - "Harry, why didn't you come to The Burrow sooner?"

Harry froze again. Did Ron guess something was wrong after all? He _wanted_ to tell, even if just to let the storm break and get it over with, but -

The door burst open and Hermione rushed in. Harry was engulfed in a springy mass of bushy brown hair and was trapped in a furious hug that squeezed the breath out of his lungs like air from an accordion. "Harry! Mrs. Weasley told me you were up here! You took an age to get here by broom! What on earth possessed you? You could have just Apparated!"

She sounded slightly frenzied. Harry recalled Ron's statement about her rushing about doing nothing. Through a mass of hair Harry caught Ron's eye, Ron raised his eyebrows as if to ruefully say, _told you so_. Hermione let go and Harry hurriedly wondered if he should just continue with what he had started to say, after all Hermione was just as much his friend as Ron. He swallowed, "Hermione, Ron, I -"

"Let me go first!" cried Hermione, settling down after hugging Harry but not bothering to kiss Ron. "I heard something in London! Have you two heard? Colin Creevey's parents are getting divorced! His dad left his mum!" Harry knew that Colin Creevey's parents were both Muggles, Creevey's father was a Milkman. "Honestly! Men!" yelped Hermione, casting a sour look about her which happened to take in Harry and Ron. "Apparently he ran off with a woman he met on his milk-round. I expect she answered the door one day wearing nothing but soap-bubbles and a short towel!" Her lip curled in disgust. "I expect it was love at first sight. Talk about steadfast and loyal!"

After a statement like that, it didn't seem quite the time for Harry to unburden himself about how he was dumping her friend.

Hermione then spent quarter of an hour filling them in on the Creevey situation and then the wedding.

"Are your parents coming?" Harry tried to lever his way into her oration.

He was treated to the sight of Hermione stopping abruptly, almost in mid-word. She reminded Harry of one of those photos in Muggle magazines where they show a silly-looking picture of someone famous and ask the readership to provide a caption.

"Oh! They – they can't come. They'd pre-booked a Caribbean cruise." She turned smartly upon Harry, "What are you wearing for the wedding, Harry?"

Harry started, was that even important? "Er …"

"It's all arranged." That was Ron. "Harry's wearing a set of Percy's posh work-robes, ones that Percy left when he stalked out." Ron had seen Harry unpack and knew perfectly well that Harry had brought no dress-robes, but covered for him anyway.

Hermione looked askance at Harry, as though she thought he could have made more of an effort just this once.

"Well his Yule Ball dress robes don't fit now," persisted Ron, "and you can't expect him to blow a stack of cash on new dress-robes at a time like this, when we might need the money for _other _things."

Having been obliquely reminded of greater events, Hermione left the topic of the robes alone and instead touched upon her efforts in the British Wizards' Library where she had been looking up information on the Founders. "But we'll talk about that tomorrow," she announced, shifting onto something which was clearly much more important. "So, Harry, what about those match-tickets I bought you for your birthday?" She gave him a hard look, "Did you enjoy the match?" Harry shifted uncomfortably, recalling that he hadn't even gone. "Well, did you?"

"Yeah, 'spect he did," said Ron, puzzled at her tone, "it was a good match. It was in all the papers."

Hermione half-turned toward Ron, looking faintly exasperated, "Ronald, was I asking _you_?" She turned firmly back to Harry, "So, did you even _use_ those match-tickets? Those tickets weren't cheap you know!"

Staring up at her, Harry had a horrible feeling she knew he hadn't been to the match at all.

"Give it a rest, Hermione," Ron was half-laughing and half-puzzled, "Harry's only just got here!"

Hermione folded her arms and looked up at the ceiling, "Ron, in case you haven't noticed, I _am_ talking to Harry."

Ron was becoming annoyed now, "Hermione, in case you haven't noticed, Harry doesn't have to answer you."

Hermione blinked, her face shifting in surprise. Her response was to pretend that Ron hadn't spoken. She turned back to Harry, "So, come on then, did you go to the match?"

Harry had put up with enough, "What's it to you?" Hermione looked as though someone had dashed a cup of cold water in her face. "Well?" insisted Harry.

"Well, I was just -"

"Just what – snooping?"

"Well – well, it's embarrassing, you know - for Ginny, I mean. She's going out with a boy who never sees her! That's why I gave you the tickets, so you could take her with you! I wanted you to go together!" Her voice rose as she stared earnestly at Harry, "You do still like her, don't you? You really did like her at the end? It's all over the papers. None of us thought of that. The press can turn on a girl like that when things go wrong." Her voice spiraled shrilly, "They can be very mean! I should know!"

"I don't get it," Ron's face creased with incomprehension as he took in the increasingly fraught Hermione; he sounded as though he was struggling to define Golpalott's Third Law. "I mean, since when have you come over all Little Miss Match-maker?"

Hermione turned on Ron, "Oh for goodness sake, stop doing that!"

"Doing what?" asked Ron, pained.

"_That__"_ screeched Hermione. "Questioning me! Haven't I got a right to speak?"

"What? But I," Ron looked flabbergasted and hurt in one, "- but I don't know what -"

Mrs. Weasley's yell then interrupted the volatile atmosphere: supper was ready and the three went down. Hermione led the way with her face set, both boys stepping gingerly after her as though she was an unexploded bomb.

"Has she been like that all the time?" Harry whispered, aghast.

"Not just her mate, try all three of them," muttered Ron. "Mum's been off her head - the wedding's getting to her I expect - and Ginny's been no better than Hermione. Both of them as tense as anything, rowing with each other one minute and then huddling together and gossiping in heated little whispers the next."

"Rowing?" whispered Harry, astonished.

"Yeah, really bad fights. Real cat-fights. Nasty, snapping ones that are about stupid nothings – so you know that, underneath it all, it's about something really big. Bit like that time when they had that furious row in the Common Room – you remember, that row about 'Quidditch' when you and me just kept our heads down?" He flicked Hermione an unsettled look, "It's like someone's been putting something in their tea," he said darkly. "Or maybe it's that someone needs to _start _putting something in their tea."


	5. Chapter 5

Title: (Chapter 05)   
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 

**Chapter 5**

A few minutes later, supper was laid and there was a jostle of elbows, chattering of voices and scraping of chair legs as everyone settled down to eat. When the scrum cleared, Harry found himself sitting at a corner next to Ron, with Hermione opposite.

Crookshanks squirmed around people's ankles, hoping for tidbits. Mrs. Weasley gave him a sharp, sideways glance and looked disapproving but said nothing.

"I'm so rushed, I'm just dead on my feet," she called, sounding martyred. "I'm so glad someone else went for the confetti. Town is always so crowded! Well, at least that's one thing: with Ron and Ginny both finally in the sixth-form, I only have a few more ghastly trips to Kings Cross. Muggles - really they're just not _like_ us – and the station is always _packed_ with them!"

Hermione coloured, her parents were Muggles.

"And this time round" huffed Mrs. Weasley, "I suppose there'll be photographers trying to get Ginny's picture!"

Harry dipped his head and desperately hoped no-one was looking at him. This whole thing was so _embarrassing!_ Then he wanted to shoot a glance at Ginny Weasley just to reassure himself that she _wasn't_ looking at him. But if he did take a look and she _was_ watching him, then she'd just think he was interested!

Mrs. Weasley continued talked over everyone. "Fleur's due to Floo-in tonight with her little sister, Gabrielle, so there'll be even more people in the house." Oddly, Harry was suddenly struck with the strange impression that Mrs. Weasley was as compelled to talk and chatter as he had been earlier. "I'm so relieved we'll have the Hogwarts House-Elves for the day itself!"

Harry dared flick a quick glance at Hermione. House-elves were indentured servants who were born to unquestioningly serve wizarding families. The wizards were very happy with the arrangement but oddly the house-elves also clung to it: they had never known anything else, they weren't equipped to deal with self-determination.

Hermione had thought the whole thing was a disgrace.

About a hundred elves were employed at Hogwarts and when Hermione had found out, her outraged reaction had been to form S.P.E.W.: the Society for the Promotion of Elvish Welfare, intended to promote elvish rights by debate and persuasion. When her initial plan had not born fruit, Hermione had done what she always did: re-doubled her efforts. Convinced she knew best, that the elves just needed her 'helping hand', Hermione had stubbornly ramped up her plan to one of forcibly 'liberating' house-elves by leaving 'clothes' lying about in the Gryffindor common-room for them to accidentally pick up and 'accept'.

The house-elves had refused to clean Gryffindor Tower for months.

Oddly, Harry and Ron had heard little of S.P.E.W. in over a year; Harry didn't wonder why, he was just anxious not to have it brought up again now.

Harry gradually became aware that Mrs. Weasley was giving him a very odd look. "Well," she said in a trilling tone, "who'd ever have foreseen you and Ginny going out with each other?"

Harry almost choked on his supper.

"I know Ginny spent years mooning after you, Harry," Mrs. Weasley said, voice getting very tight, "but I never thought you were interested in her. Nothing to watch out for there, I thought. Nothing to worry about there. Oh well, I suppose if a girl waits long enough …"

Horrified, Harry suddenly wished that they were back to talking about house-elves.

Mrs. Weasley's voice sounded unnaturally bright, "Talk about a dark horse. I never expected it. You never seemed remotely interested. But that's boy's, isn't it?"

Harry's ears burned red.

"Ginny always had a crush of course, but I though she'd grown out of it!" Mrs. Weasley gave an odd, too-sweet laugh. "Sitting in this very kitchen as a little girl, playing with a teacup, casting and re-casting the tealeaves, always trying to see a future with Harry Potter!"

Mrs. Weasley's voice had now taken on a sharp, brittle edge and Harry flicked an alarmed glance in her direction, only to look away quickly when he saw she was giving him a hard, unblinking stare.

"Well, Ginny had better make the most of it because it won't last!" she snapped. "It can't last! I've told her so! Boys! Go and ignore a girl for years and then suddenly only interested in one thing - _"_

"_Mum!" _

Ginny was blushing so hard she looked as though her face was on fire.

"Mum, will you stop going on about – about when I was a kid! No-one wants to hear that stuff!" Ginny sounded as though she were swallowing hard, "I mean – I mean, _all_ little girls do silly things like that! And I know I get sent smart clothes for free by designers and I wear them when I go out – but anyone would! But I don't ask to be photographed you know! I mean -" She began to sound slightly desperate, glancing around as though for help. Harry hurriedly looked away. "I mean – I just …" Others shifted to look at Ginny, puzzled as she got into increasing difficulties.

"They're taking the Dark Arts a lot more seriously at Hogwarts this year!" Ron sounded slightly desperate, almost as though he had jumped into the flow of the conversation just to try and change it. "Charlie said so. He heard it off Remus. They're even talking about putting the Scholomance on the curriculum – slipping it into the History lessons!"

"The _Scholomance?"_ yelped Hermione, finally distracted from the sight of Mrs. Weasley glaring at Ginny.

Harry looked about – _what was the Scholomance?_

"It's a fabled Dark School for wizards," clarified Ron, keen to keep talking. "The school's supposed to be run by the Devil himself. You're s'posed to be able to learn anything in there. You got there by a sort of magical portal – The Devil's Door - not that anyone really knows how to open it, but it's s'posed to open the breach to another dimension – The Dark Road. Getting in is called: Knocking On The Devil's Door." Ron was running on, gabbling away. Harry definitely got the impression that Ron was hoping that if he kept talking, then his mum couldn't.

"Trouble is," got in George, rattling on, "it's supposed to be impossible to get out. People get trapped there until they die. It's a prison, really. Anyway if you die in the Scholomance, it's pretty much 'worse than death' because you don't just die and that's the end of it – at least that'd be some kind of escape. Nope, apparently your soul's trapped there forever."

"Yeah," said Fred, "according to the stories, the Devil selects the best student to become his 'assistant'. Anyway, the student rides a dragon, throwing lightning bolts – _well cool_."

"You lot seem to know an awful lot about it," yapped Mrs. Weasley.

"Yeah, well dad used to tell us it as a fairy story," said Fred.

"As a _fairy_ - "

Fred cut across his mother's screech.

"Hasn't anyone ever got out?"

"Well, some say that in Elizabethan times a Dark Wizard nearly got the Devil's Door open to let wizards out," commented Bill, "but The Red Queen saved the day with seconds to spare."

Okay, now this was getting really confusing. Harry looked about the table: "Alright: just who was the 'Red Queen'?"

Hermione spoke up, but her tone was uncharacteristically muted. "The Red Queen was Elizabeth I, Harry."

"W_hat_ - ? But I thought she was a Muggle!"

"Well, possibly. The histories say that she might have been a witch, you see." Hermione continued in those same very quiet tones, "That she might have inherited her powers from her mother, Anne Boleyn." Hermione's voice for some reason then became even smaller. "Anne Boleyn was strongly rumoured to have enchantment powers over men, making them fall in love whether they truly felt it or not."

"Yeah, she was no great looker _and _she had six fingers on one hand," Ron brayed, barely intelligible through a mouthful of food. "But she still managed to wind men around her finger!" He swallowed a potato whole and snorted with laughter, "Probably her sixth one!"

Hermione shot Ron a repressive look. "Anyway, Anne was strongly rumoured to be a sorceress who had enchanted King Henry VIII."

"Yeah, enchanted him until one day he snapped out of it, fell out of love with her and promptly chopped her head off!" nodded Ron.

"Ron!" gasped Hermione, but then gathered herself. "Anyway, they say that Queen Elizabeth knew that she herself was a witch but for the sake of the nation suppressed her powers. But she did have connections with the wizarding world and when she was a young Queen, still in her twenties, the wizard John Dee was a confidante who -"

"Anyone want a quill and parchment so they can start taking notes?" called out Ron, laughing.

Hermione shifted with indignation.

"Well, seeing as you don't respect knowledge and aren't interested in expanding your education," she glared at Ron, "I'll finish by saying that according to legend two powerful wizards had locked the Door from the outside about a thousand years ago – then a Dark Wizard tried to get the Devil's Door open during Elizabeth's time. Fortunately Elizabeth intervened at the last second and used all her latent powers and stubborn royal will to close the Door. No-one knows precisely what happened to the locking mechanism after that. It did pop up again in the vaults of the French royal family, and after the Revolution the rumours are that Talleyrand discovered what it was and swept it out of Napoleon's reach."

"Er … are you saying that, er – whatsisname? - _Talleyrand _was a wizard too?"

"Oh, of course not, Harry!" Hermione spoke as though surely the fact was obvious. "Honestly, I do wish the wizarding world would stop assuming that any Muggle of any account somehow has to be secretly magical or a Squib!" She took in his blank expression. "Oh for heaven's sake, you don't even know who Talleyrand was, do you?"

"Talleyrand is Hermione's 'Historical Boyfriend'," Ron snorted, laughing in a stage whisper. "Trust me, I've suffered several lectures on him."

"He is _not_ my Historical - !" Hermione's tone was a combination of the affronted and the annoyed but she had gone somewhat pink. "He was a Minister, wit, one of the most urbane, versatile and influential diplomats in history -"

"And he was a right liar," laughed Ron.

"He was not!" yelped Hermione. "It's famously said of him that 'he could fool anyone without ever telling a lie'! He was a figure of the Enlightenment, he was …"

Harry tuned out. Was any of that true about the Scholomance? Was it all just legend? Queen Elizabeth I, a witch? The Red Queen?

His gaze traveled about the table and spotted Ginny Weasley, who for some reason was staring resolutely and unblinkingly at the table-top, blushing furiously, her face almost as vivid as her hair.

Harry's gaze jerked away.

"… was a dissolute aristocrat, godless bishop, bribe-dealing political opportunist, relentless shagger and an all-round devious git who even managed to get himself excommunicated!" Ron had evidently cut across Hermione and was giving his own chortling summary of Talleyrand. Ron clearly didn't mind Hermione's 'other boyfriends' so long as they were several centuries dead.

"Sounds like a right bad-boy," snorted George.

"He was not a 'bad-boy'!" screeched Hermione. "He had a shrewd mind and -"

"_Herm-io-nee lurves a baaaad-boy,"_ the twins sang in unison, "_Herm-io-nee lurves a baaaad-boy."_

Hermione looked as though she was on the verge of slamming her fork down and losing her temper completely when Bill cut in, breaking the atmosphere. "Fancy a go at the Ogdens Old Firewater, lads?"

"Oh, Bill! They're just children!"

"They're Of Age, Mum."

Two minutes later Ron, Harry and Bill were sitting over by the fireplace, with the twins playing cards at the kitchen table and Hermione and Ginny off in a corner, muttering intently.

Harry gagged and smoke came out of his mouth. At his first swig of Firewater, it felt like swallowing battery acid. "I can't believe people _pay_ to drink this stuff!"

Bill shrugged. "The trick is to sip it." He took a contented sip and leant back, smacking his lips, feet up on the fire fender.

Harry now gave a sideways look and found himself trying not to stare at Bill's scars. They had healed into silvery claw marks that raked diagonally across his face, giving him an almost piratical appearance.

Harry knew that the whole Weasley family had been incredibly tense coming up to the first full moon after the attack, but nothing had happened to Bill. Ron had written to Harry in a mixture of relief at nothing happening and anger and the St Mungo's misdiagnosis: _Those Doctors don't know anything! I know your supposed to need the same N.E.W.T.s to be a doctor as an Auror, but I'll bet you anything that St Mungo's take any old idiot in the end!_

"Chin up Bill," Ron now toasted at a whisper. "Ignore the hormonal madness. Just keep going bro' and by this time Thursday, you'll be hitched." He looked around and lowered his voice even further so that his mum couldn't hear him, "And the horror will be over."

All three tried to hide their muffled laughter.

Bill then spent some time telling them how it was going at Gringotts: that the goblins were playing it canny – trying to use the war situation to wangle rights out of the wizards - the unspoken alternative being that they wouldn't oppose Voldemort if he promised them freedoms which the government would not. "The wizards are reaping what they have sown. Now they need help from the other species, none is forthcoming. You Know Who is a devil, but in this instance they have decided it's better the devil they do _not_ know."

"What? But what about the Centaurs? They're parked right on Hogwarts doorstep!" Harry suddenly sounded rather desperate.

"Hagrid's been talking to them, but they've told him that You Know Who has sent emissaries offering them what they've always wanted – not to be penned on reservations. To get their reward, all they have to do is to stay out of the fight."

"Well – what about the Merpeople?"

"Re-located to Loch Ness, along with the Giant Squid."

"What – they _left?"_

"Not exactly. The Ministry's concerned about Hogwarts' security and has put some kind of security cordon about the school. All very hush-hush. The Merpeople were glad to leave, I've heard. Security is tight: the secret passages in and out of the school are being monitored – even that smashed-up one that comes out behind the mirror."

"What about underneath?" said Ron. "What about the Chamber? When me and Harry slid sown that pipe there were loads of side-shoot and off-branches."

"Minerva McGonagall's not letting much slip, but she seems very convinced that any Chamber-tunnels would be a very un-safe place for a wizard. She's the Head, she must know what she's doing."

Their small group fell silent at that and after a while Bill went and sat with the twins.

After a few minutes of slow sipping, Harry looked about and saw that Hermione and Ginny were still muttering intently in a corner – his gaze shot away from them - and that Mrs. Weasley was sitting at the table in the middle of the room, reading from _Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests._ "So sad that he ended up the way he did," she sighed, slowly turning a page.

"That's about the only decent book he ever wrote," whispered Ron. His voice shifted into stifled laughter, "And that was probably ghost-written by some brow-beaten lackey."

Harry joined Ron in laughing. He casually looked down at his glass – Uh? How could half of it be gone already? He shrugged, well, he couldn't very well say that someone was tricking him into drinking it. Ron sat next to him in a companionable silence, both lads staring into the glowing coals with the remainder of their drinks nursed in their laps.

"Oh, Ronnie!" Both boys jerked slightly as Mrs. Weasley called over, "Have you told Harry that Hermione's been made Head Girl?"

Evidently Ron had not told Harry.

"Who's Head Boy?"

"Ernie Macmillan. Well, there wasn't much choice, was there?" Ron looked furtively about him and whispered, "Reckon they gave it to Ernie as they wanted a matching set of opinionated detail-freaks at the top."

Harry spluttered his drink with choked, guilty mirth as Ron waved sheepishly across at Hermione who beamed back.

"Sluggy brought us the news about Hermione," Mrs. Weasley called out. Harry looked at Ron, his eyes widening in surprise, '_Sluggy?_'. "Sluggy knows everyone," continued Mrs. Weasley, her voice carrying around the room.

"I thought your Mum didn't think much of Slughorn?" whispered Harry.

"She didn't, until he was on her side. Dad still doesn't like him though." Ron took a sip of his drink. "We'll miss out on one thing by not going back to Hogwarts: Remus is back as a Professor and he's head of Head of Gryffindor. At least Remus is out of immediate danger from Greyback – who swears he'll kill him - and at least we'll know where to find him if we want him!"

"He's not Prof of D.A.D.A. again?" queried Harry, urgently. "Because there's something wrong with that job!"

"Nah – Professor McGonagall shifted Slughorn sideways over to D.A.D.A. and Remus is in on Potions."

Harry then remembered the emotional reconciliation between the Fleur and Mrs. Weasley when tending Bill in the infirmary. He lowered his voice, "How's your mum with Fleur?"

There was a pause before Ron answered, "Well, just about okay – but it's that old English versus the French thing." Ron lowered his voice, "Let's face it, things haven't been right since The Conquest – especially not after we gave 'em a right pasting in the return match at Agincourt."

Harry blinked, unlike Ron, he thought that battle had been won by a lot of Muggle archers, actually.

"You can't expect friendships overnight," continued Ron, lowering his voice even further, "Bill says that so long as he and Fleur are actually legally hitched at the end of the day, he doesn't care if the sky falls in for the rest, he'll still count it a win."

After a few minutes, Harry got up and made for the pumpkin juice on the sideboard. He was thirsty and he felt that Firewater, though nice in its own way, wasn't quite the thing for a genuine thirst. As he reached for the pitcher, someone stepped in front of him: Ginny Weasley.

Her words came in a gabbling rush.

"I'm sorry Harry. I'm not responsible for any of those stories in the press. You've got to believe me, Harry. They just print whatever they like. I can't help it. It's not my fault. I know you wouldn't want -"

The relaxing effects of the alcohol were gone immediately. Harry's glance lurched about – he caught Hermione gazing intently at him – and finally he stared resolutely over the top of Ginny Weasley's head. As he fumbled with the pitcher of pumpkin juice, he realised she had not stopped talking.

" … I know you're a really private person, Harry. I know a lot about you, Harry. I really understand you, Harry." The pitcher rattled against the drinking glass now. "I really feel I know you, Harry, and -"

A gout of ash spewed out of the fireplace and two silvery-haired forms staggered from it, coughing and knocking soot out of their well-cut clothing. Ron, the twins, and Bill noisily bade them an eager welcome. Fred actually knocked his chair over backwards, he stood up in such a hurry, beaming.

Fleur and Gabrielle had arrived.

Harry caught an exasperated look on Hermione's face.

Bill was across the room in three strides, hugging tight to his smudged fiancée. The twins were cheering and pushing plates aside on the kitchen table, trying to set up clean ones for a small supper for the two Delacours.

"Oh for God's sake," muttered an annoyed Ginny, viewing all the sudden, male activity. She turned on her heel to address Harry, only to find that he had hurried back across the room to Ron.


	6. Chapter 6

Title: (Chapter 06)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D.

Beta: Anise. Test read: SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 

**Chapter 6**

Before the Delacours had even finished their make-shift supper, Ginny, irritated, had forced their welcome-present upon them: a Pygmy Puff for the eleven-year-old Gabrielle. The young girl played with it half-heartedly – evidently not all children were enchanted by the nasty-faced furballs – whereupon it bit her finger and she cried out.

"Well stop teasing it then!" snapped Ginny, snatching the Pygmy Puff back as Gabrielle winced and sucked her finger.

Ginny stalked off in a huff. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry caught Ginny and Hermione talking heatedly in low tones. Several urgent exchanges were made between the two, then, astonishingly, Ginny gave a loud snort and stamped off, leaving a shocked-looking Hermione.

Harry blinked then swiftly turned away before either girl could spot him.

"Bloody Pygmy Puffs," ground out Ron. He half turned to Harry, "You know that Hogwarts have had to put them on the approved-pets list, don't you? So many kids have got them!"

Minutes later, Gabrielle stooped to rustle about in her bag. "Is 'Arry Potter 'ere?" she cried, craning about the full room, "I 'ave a present for 'im! I 'av got zee Chocolate Frogs – 'iz favoureets!" She spotted him and cantered up to him, proffering the Frogs - Harry thought she looked a bit like a very keen _Drop __Dead _fan about to meet one of her idols. Then she stopped short. "_You _are 'Arry Potter?" Her voice carried an edge of disbelief, "_You?_ But you look nuzzing like 'Arry Potter! Arry Potter, ee is really good-looking, you are …" she looked him over "just normal!" She looked around in puzzlement, seeking out her sister, "Fleur? Zat is really 'Arry Potter?"

Fleur peremptorily put down her fork, "Gabrielle, I _told_ you ee was a normal boy." She turned and bestowed a blinding smile upon Harry, "Of course, ee is brave and good, an' ee definitely saved your life in zat awful Tournament," her gaze at Harry was positively glowing now, "but Gabrielle, I told you zat you only 'ad a crush an' zat you were not in lurve wiz 'Arry Potter! 'Ow could you be, you did not know 'im! You 'ardly even _saw_ 'im at zat Tournament!"

Gabrielle looked extremely put out, then she brightened, "Does it mean I can I keep zee chocolates now?"

"Non! You 'ave to give 'im zem now more zan 'ever! You offered zem, now you must give zem!"

Gabrielle, scowling, thrust the chocolates at Harry, mumbling something about 'gift'. She turned on her heel and scampered back to her supper.

Beside him, Harry felt Ron stifle his desperate laughter.

Harry didn't know whether to be relieved or embarrassed – at least he didn't have a little girl with a crush on him but it had been confirmed as official: he was no looker. He promptly forgot all about it as he caught sight of a spectacular gold tiara which Mrs. Weasley primly placed on the table, next to the sugar bowl. It looked completely out of place in the Weasley's humdrum kitchen. A silence fell over the room as people caught sight of it and gathered around.

It looked like something Royalty would wear at a wedding.

The twins gathered about it, wide-eyed, "Phwoar, drop-dead style, Mum!"

For once they actually sounded awed.

"It's your Aunty Muriel's. One of her friends, Miss Meadowes, left it to her in her will. She's loaned it to us for the wedding."

"Miss Meadowes …?" Bill was tentative. "Wasn't she …?"

"Let's _not _bother to talk about that now, Bill," reprimanded Mrs. Weasley.

Bill coughed and gave the tiara a tentative poke with a finger, "Is that _the_ Meadowes tiara?"

Mrs. Weasley slapped his hand aside, "No, Dorcas bequeathed one of her own, not the family heirloom. Well, she could hardly bequeath the famous one out the family – the Meadowes are such an old name. Anyway, the famous one was found to be missing when they read the will – stolen! I ask you! Is nothing sacred? The famous one was silver anyway, I wouldn't have wanted it," she sniffed, "– very _Slytherin_ is silver. This one's a gold replica."

The conversation was interrupted by Ginny who was suddenly there, reaching toward the tiara with both hands, her expression entranced. "Oh, Mum, it's gorgeous!" She picked it up, handling it almost reverently, "Oh Mum, can I try it on? Please, Mum? I've always wanted to wear a tiara!"

"I expect you will - _when you're the one getting married!"_ Mrs. Weasley held out a determined hand and a very displeased Ginny turned the tiara over to her. Mrs. Weasley put it down on top of its cardboard box.

Fleur deftly picked it up and placed it in her own hair to general admiration before putting it back down again and turning away to check the colour of dress ribbons. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry caught the furious expression on Ginny's face as she glared from Fleur to the now ignored tiara and back again.

"Ginny only got Acceptables in her O.W.L.s." Mrs. Weasley, now banging pots in the sink, gave a hard look over her shoulder, "According to the newspapers it was because she had other things on her mind!"

Harry froze.

"I know you didn't get fabulous results, Ginny," Hermione hurriedly interjected, "but there are plenty of NEWT options still open to you. Charms might take an Acceptable and Muggle Studies will take anyone. Divination's easy of course, but don't take Divination, because -"

"_Stop giving me advice, Little Miss Perfect_!" Ginny's shriek rang about the kitchen. "I don't need to be pushed in the direction of any more wrong subjects!"

The room jolted to a halt as people turned to stare. Fleur and Gabrielle gave openly quizzical looks. Ginny coloured at all the silent attention. "Well, with Hermione's twelve Outstandings," her voice shook slightly, "oh sorry – with her only _eleven _as Harry beat her at D.A.D.A." Her voice took on an edge now and she addressed Hermione directly, "I don't think you're in a position to advise the rest of us! I don't think your advice is going to be much use to me! It hasn't been so far!"

Hermione reddened. People exchanged silent looks of utter incomprehension at the two glaring girls.

There was a bustle of French as Fleur, taking-in the atmosphere, gathered up Gabrielle and shepherded her to the stairs. Bill went with them. Gabrielle was to share with Ginny, and Fleur with Hermione in Percy's old room. "Gabrielle eez tired," called Fleur over her shoulder.

At that, a young girl's French-accented wail drifted down the stairs as the party went up, "I am _not!_ And besides, I don't want to share with _'er_. Eet is famous zat she likes cute, fluffy things and 'as no taste. Eet is in ze papers zat she 'as a bed covered in pink, stuffed toys!"

"Why have I got to share with her!" Ginny immediately turned to Mrs. Weasley as the Delacours receded. "She's just like her sister – just another bloody French bird who thinks she can pull anything in pants -"

"What? Come on! She's only _eleven_" objected Ron.

Ginny ignored him, "- I know you gave up the fight to split up Bill and Fleur, Mum -"

"What 'fight'?" squawked Mrs. Weasley, looking somewhat guilty. "Where did you get that silly idea from?" She glared at her daughter who stood open-mouthed, but Mrs. Weasley then exasperatedly stumped to the bottom of the stairs and shouted up that that Gabrielle was now sharing with Fleur and that Hermione would move her things into Ginny's room later. At hearing that last one, Ginny took a huge, angry breath and Harry noted that Hermione didn't look too happy herself about the change of sleeping arrangements. Mrs. Weasley stumped off up the stairs.

With Mrs. Weasley gone, Ginny and Hermione both automatically moved to take the seat next to Harry at the table. There was an uncomfortable, unspoken moment of dipping and dodging as each girl simply assumed the other would step aside. Then, in a move straight out of Musical Chairs, Ginny gripped the edge of the table and bumped Hermione out of the way with her hip, firmly plunking herself in the seat.

Harry and Ron shot each other amazed looks, Ron frozen in mid-motion as he moved to take a spoonful of sugar for his tea.

"_Ex__cuse_ me!" Hermione was looking down at Ginny, outraged.

"Why, what have you done?" Ginny snapped back. It was a cliché which Harry hadn't found funny the first time he'd heard it – about ten years ago in the school playground. "I think you'll find that I _am_ Harry's girlfriend! I do have the right, you know!"

"You have the _right?"_ Hermione's voice was a squawk, "You sound like a Jane Austen heroine trying to claim precedence!"

The lads stared at the blistering girls and then at each other: the furious row was out of all proportion to the issue of who got what chair in the kitchen.

Ginny's temper rose even further, "Come on, Hermione, don't stint yourself, _say it!' _ She thumped the table and the air about her grew very hot. "I can tell you've been dying to! You've secretly been narked ever since this whole thing started but didn't quite go your way! Come on, say it! What am I? His squeeze? His doxy? His bit of fluff?" She jerked to her feet and erupted, "_His little scrubber?"_

Harry threw an appalled glance at Ron, shaking his head. Both boys were stunned at what they were hearing.

"What was I?" Ginny screamed on. "Come on, what was I? - '_his distraction from bad times'?_"

Hermione, livid, did not back down. "Well I didn't see you complaining about it! Too busy enjoying yourself, queening it over everyone as Harry's girlfriend!" She took a deep breath and her voice hit an even higher pitch, _"Well it would have worked out just the same with anyone else! So don't tell yourself you were special!" _Ron and Harry looked at each other, completely uncomprehending. "There was nothing important about you – _nothing!_ Anyone could have been you, _so stop grabbing at him like he's a hat you got cheap in the sales!"_

Ginny was so furious she was temporarily mute - and then the sugar bowl on the table overturned and smashed in two. Mrs. Weasley scuttled back into the room, alerted at the noise of shattering china, "Ron, will you watch what you are doing!"

"But I never touched it!" cried Ron.

"Well it didn't smash by itself, did it?"

Mrs. Weasley stormed back out of the kitchen, this time clutching swatches.

"I don't know why you two are so upset," said Ron, looking from girl to girl.

Hermione's reaction was immediate. "Don't label me 'upset'!" she shouted, "I am _not_ upset! I'm _angry_! But if you're all just going to sit here labeling me, then I'm off to move my stuff out of Percy's old room! I don't see any reason to stay here!" She glared about her then cast a sour look at Ginny, "Although frankly I'd rather share the attic with the ghoul tonight than move in with you!" She snatched up her bag from the floor, hurriedly stuffing some smallish boxes back in – her own purchases from Diagon Alley. She stalked off, somehow managing to convey the air of one who had just gained the moral high ground.

Unhappy at all the shouting, Crookshanks had already hidden under the sofa.

"And they say Luna Lovegood's the nutter," breathed Ron, shaking his head.

Harry found himself giving Ron a bit of a look. Luna was more than a bit weird, but she'd come through for them the night of the Hogwarts battle when few others had.

"Don't get me wrong, mate," said Ron, "I really like Luna. I know she's a bit … different, but with her what you see is what you get, isn't it? There's no pretence, she doesn't put anything on, she knows who she is. She's not like a lot of girls who run around, pretending to be someone they're not just in order to get a lad -"

"Oh shut up, Ron!" screeched Ginny, "what are you, her fan? Fine! You can gawp all over when she comes to the wedding, faddling on about stupid things like Snorkacks!"

Like Hermione before her, Ginny was on her feet, outraged. "You've always thought you were so bloody special, Ron -" She choked off her words. She glared between Harry and Ron, "The things you two don't know would fill a library!" She looked as though she wanted to blurt something but then just snapped, "Oh, I'm off upstairs!" She speared a sour look in the direction of her bedroom, "At least that way I can make sure _I_ get the proper bed!"

George bitterly watched Ginny go. "Girls! I swear, it's only worth it if you're with the one you want!" He too got up and left.

Harry and Ron stared at each other, astounded, then hurriedly took the opportunity to escape the kitchen.

"I don't know what's gotten into Hermione and Ginny," Ron muttered as they were in the garden. "I'll have to go and apologise to Hermione, you know? What for I don't know, but if I don't she'll just have a right mood on. As a bloke who's now had two girlfriends," he looked over to where George was now sitting glumly on the kitchen steps, "two girlfriends, count 'em – TWO!" He shouted it out, sticking up that number of fingers at George, who stuck one less back - "I swear that being 'a man of the world' just isn't worth it."

Harry wondered if now was a good opportunity to raise the issue of his feelings – or lack of them – for Ginny Weasley. Right now, Ron seemed very receptive to just how difficult girls could be.

"It's like Hermione expects me to be a totally different person now we're going out." Ron said. "And it's not like she hasn't had a boyfriend before and so has unrealistic expectations, but I suppose _Vicky_ didn't need to change, seeing how he started off as Mr. Famous, Rich, International Quidditch Star!" Harry knew Ron was thinking about Viktor Krum. Hermione had also gone out with Cormac McLaggan once, but that had just been a ploy; Krum had been the real thing and Ron had always been nervous about Hermione's relationship with him. "And now she has to put up with me – but at least I made Quidditch Keeper on merit, so that's one thing!"

Harry shot him a quick look – Ron clearly still didn't know about Hermione choosing to Confundus Cormac McLaggan that time during Quidditch try-outs. She'd done it because she hadn't thought that Ron would make the team on skill alone. She had been wrong, of course: Harry would have picked Ron even if McLaggan had made five saves and Ron only four, because Quidditch was a team sport and when you got right to it, Ron was a team player. Harry hoped Ron never found out about Hermione and the Confundus though, he knew Ron would be badly hurt by it.

Ron kicked a stone so hard it sailed like a football. "I dunno, she wants us to spend every minute together. I was surprised when she was happy to go to Diagon Alley by herself today – for once she even _suggested_ she go alone."

They stood together in the quiet of the garden, each staring up at the stars. Ron calmed.

"You've chucked our Ginny, haven't you?"

Harry held his breath for a second, then –

"In my own mind, yeah."

No panic, no fuss, just two boys talking.

"Told her yet?"

"Not exactly." Harry gave a hopeful, sideways glance across at Ron. "So, you're not too bothered?"

"Not that much. People split up. Nothing new to that. Besides, she's been a right pain. Really coming the big-I-am over this whole 'Harry Potter's Girlfriend' thing. Going on about all her ex-boyfriends, hinting she could have had tons of others, hinting there were plenty of other boys who fancied her. Really queening it." He mimicked his sister's voice, "_A girl can always tell when someone fancies her, you know. I could have had lots of boys at Hogwarts, some really big names."_ He snorted. "Really big names? It was a school! There's no-one 'big' at school! The stupid, vain -" He cleared his throat, sounding somewhat bitter, "Anyway, I don't mind seeing her take a bit of a tumble on it."

Harry felt a bit encouraged to ask something which had been puzzling him.

"But then … I know it was a long time ago but, well, for a while there at the end of our fifth-form … I did actually think you were sort of _pushing_ her on me."

Ron looked uncomfortable and coughed. There was a silence, but Harry still held an inquisitive look and Ron had to speak up. "Well – er – you know, you and Cho, like."

"Me and _Cho?"_

"Well, come on, you know. I mean, you weren't exactly mad for her were you? One snog, then it takes two months for a Valentines date and even then _she_ had to ask _you_? You weren't exactly the last of the red-hot lovers."

"Oh, _thanks _Ron."

"Well, y'know, I thought she'd be safe with you."

"_Safe? Cho?"_

"No - I mean," Ron was wincing by now, "I mean … you know – our Ginny. No wild snogging. No funny business. Just a bit of hand-holding and some book-carrying, y'know?"

"Oh –!" Harry reddened, not sure what he was more embarrassed at: Ron's opinion of Harry's boyfriend-ability, or at how very differently things had _really_ turned out. "So - you mean 'safe' like you and _Lavender Brown_?"

Ron grimaced, as though swallowing nasty medicine. "Well – anyway, that big, clever plan of mine blew apart, 'cos then we got that Kiss Of Doom, the infamous Common Room Snog." He muttered an side, "Accent on the 'common'."

Harry almost cringed at the sudden memory. God, what had come over him? Kissing like a freak in front of about fifty witnesses! The more he thought about the whole 'thing' he'd had going with Ginny Weasley, the less sense it made.

"Not that I really blame you for that part, mate," Ron shifted to a dark mutter, "because she wasn't exactly retiring on that occasion."

Harry was going to say that was unfair on her but caught himself - it really wouldn't do to say 'it was my fault, I was all over her', not to her brother … "God, I'm really sorry Ron, I made such a show of myself. And since then, I - I really wanted to tell you about how my feelings had – how my feelings had … waned."

_Waned?_ God, he was sounding like Victorian heroine! But what else could he say to Ron? The truth? That faced with the seriousness of the Professor's funeral, he'd felt an urge to break away? That because he had no longer wanted to snog the snot out of her, in his mind they'd split up? How was he going to tell all that to Ron, especially as it didn't seem to matter now? So, he didn't tell him. Instead, he said, "After Dumbledore's funeral, it didn't seem the right time to tell you. But then when we left school it all got out of hand in the newspapers and -"

Ron cut him off with a shrug. "Forget about it. Ginny was after you since she started Hogwarts, even I knew that, and _she_ grabbed _you_ in the Common Room, not the other way round. You may have planted the kiss but she set it up. Anyway, what with her other boyfriends, she was hardly the retiring type. I'm all for defending a sister's honour, but they way she put it about, there wasn't exactly a much of it left."

Harry thought that was rather harsh. Ginny had only had two serious boyfriends before him and he didn't suppose anything had gone much beyond holding hands and snogging. For a fifteen-year-old girl that was not exactly 'putting it about'. In fact, the most action she'd ever had was with him, when he'd pushed her against the wall and tried to –

There was a high-pitched tone to his voice. "I told her it was over at Dumbledore's funeral!"

Ron gave him a puzzled look. "Thought you said you hadn't told her?"

Harry's thoughts stumbled for a moment. To be fair, he hadn't actually _told _her that they were through, in fact he hadn't put it that way at all, he'd – "Well, I said we shouldn't see each other because it might be dangerous for her, if Vol – if You Know Who -"

"You can say his name, I'm getting used to it."

"If Voldemort thought she was special to me. But since then … well, I really liked her at Hogwarts, Ron, but now … I'm sorry Ron, I just …" His words petered out. The truth was that Harry could hardly comprehend what his feelings had ever been on the matter, it seemed as though the whole thing had happened to someone else. "What about telling Hermione?" he asked, tentatively.

"Can't we leave Hermione out of it for the time being?" Ron suddenly sounded almost pleading. "Given the state she's in, I don't think I can take much more. Besides, things are on-edge here, can you imagine _Mum's_ reaction to an upset right now? She'd throw a fit! Let's keep our gobs shut until after the wedding, eh? Let's just see how things go?"

Harry nodded vehemently. He no more wanted the wrath of Mrs. Weasley than Ron did. "It all sounds a bit hard to believe, really."

"Nah, there's only one thing I can't believe in all this: that when you and me had a chance to go to the Quidditch Cup with Hermione's tickets, we didn't take it!"

Later, Harry lay awake, unable to sleep as Ron snored in the next bed.

Ron had a box of Chocolate Frogs open on the table between them, the frogs twitching in their wrappers. Surprisingly few had been eaten, and then mostly by Ron. Harry hadn't liked to say so, but he had faintly dreaded unwrapping each one. He wasn't averse to the chocolate, instead he found that he dreaded the cards: in each one he might find a card of Professor Dumbledore, with the image of the murdered Professor waving and twinkling up at him, the picture unaware that the man himself was already dead.

It was a possibility that Harry found incredibly upsetting.

Opening each frog had been like playing Russian Roulette; after two goes and no Dumbledore, Harry had stopped chancing it. If the Chocolate Frog cards were a gun, then the chamber had been clicked on twice and he'd gotten away with it, but Harry had the horrible feeling that he'd stretched his luck too far already and that on the third time of asking the chamber would be loaded and the weapon would go off.


	7. Chapter 7

Title: (Chapter 07)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D.

Beta: Anise. Some test reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Chapter 7**

The next day – with the wedding the day after - tempers were frayed all-round. When Ron leant across to kiss Hermione at breakfast, she winced and turned her face away, still stiff with sour temper from the night before. That morning's _Daily Prophet_ didn't help: with everything going on, Harry had forgotten to warn Ron about what the reporters thought they had heard at the garden gate and the paper was full of stuff about '_Harry and Ginny – love in the time of danger! The romance that cheers the nation – bringing sunlight to the darkest day!'_

At breakfast, Fred had laughingly read out quotes with a lot of dramatic declamations and eyelash-batting.

"Is any of that true?" Mrs. Weasley was horrified. Ginny had snatched the paper off her brother. _"Shut up, won't you!" _Mrs. Weasley had then clattered about the kitchen as though she was expecting to find foreign spies in the bread bin.

Harry had kept his head down and frantically busied himself with his toast.

The post-owls arrived, Harry received one delivered by ordinary post-owl as hired from Diagon Alley. He tore it open.

"Anyone we know, mate?"

Harry checked the signature at the bottom and was astounded: it was Aunt Petunia! He scanned it, it began_ "This is a warning – I don't want you to come back!" _Harry looked angrily at the line. What? – she was kicking him out _now? _

Fred knocked his arm, "Hey, Harry, Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes are thinking of going into Healing Potions. Tanit's introduced us to a supplier who's got a line in synthetic Dragon's blood." He grew faintly rhapsodical, "I was really lucky to meet Tanit, she really _understands_ me, you know? I knew she was special from the first time we went out for a drink together …" He took a breath of air and then got back to business, "Anyway, George and I are thinking that an endorsement from you - _The Boy Who Lived_ – would be a real sales boost. How about it? There'd be a percentage in it for you and -"

"You two would use anyone to make money!" snapped Ron. "You even sold that Darkness Powder to Malfoy!"

"We told you, he was never in our shop! We don't even have any record of sending it to him at Hogwarts – don't you think we checked?"

"Well how did he get hold of it then, eh?" fumed Ron, "as if by magic, was it?"

"Well the good side want it too! Tonks has even bought Darkness Powder, so why don't you give it a rest!"

After breakfast Harry and Ron elected to withdraw to Ron's room. Harry found that he'd scrumpled up Petunia's message and stuffed it in his pocket unread. He yanked it out and hurled it in Ron's waste-bin. Aunt Petunia didn't want him back, eh? Well tough, she'd have to, because if nothing else he was going back for his trunk!

After a short while, Hermione came up. She stood over them, hands on her hips, "Okay, I want to know what's going on. And don't look at me like that you two, it's obvious there's something wrong. It doesn't take a genius, Harry, to see you've hardly spoken two words to Ginny since you arrived," – Harry didn't like to correct her by saying he'd actually spoken _no_ words to Ginny, which Hermione would have known if she'd been paying careful attention. "I know you didn't go to the Quidditch Cup Final with her even though I bought you those tickets," she took in their expressions, "she _told_ me! It was hardly telepathy! But I've heard no word that you've broken up, and now we've got all this lovey-dovey stuff in this morning's paper - what is going on!"

Harry wondered if all women looked like Mrs. Weasley when they were cross.

"Er … I thought you and Ginny weren't speaking to each other after last night?" queried Ron, knowing full-well what the true situation was between Harry and Ginny, and trying to cover for Harry.

"Stop trying to change the subject, Ronald! Of _course_ Ginny and I are still talking to each other. She explained that she's upset because – because Harry keeps giving her mixed messages!"

Mixed messages? Harry was astounded, surely he'd given her only one message? – _I'm not talking to you! _

"Harry, you do still like Ginny, don't you?" Hermione suddenly sounded pained and faintly pleading.

Harry was startled. Of course he liked Ginny Weasley - well, he liked her well-enough. Besides, what else was he going to say about her in front of Ron? "Sure I like her," he said, shrugging uncomfortably.

"Then why don't you talk to her?"

"Harry can't," gabbled Ron, "er … it's not safe for her. It's the Vol - it's the You Know Who thing." Evidently Ron could bear to hear the name Voldemort, but was not yet quite up to saying it. "Well come on, it's obvious!" he persisted, attempting to protect Harry's flank. "If she's going out with him – well …" He finished brightly, as thought he'd just succeeded in knocking a coconut off a shie at the local fair, "Well, she's a target isn't she?"

"_What?"_ Hermione was astounded.

"Well, it's true," said Harry, sensing his chance, "it's obvious isn't it? Us splitting up," he took sight of Hermione's darkening expression and hurriedly corrected himself, "I mean, me staying away from her – it's for her own good!"

"_For her own good?"_ Hermione's tone was astonished. "It's ridiculous, that's what it is! What's the point in 'staying away' from her if no-one knows you've 'split up'?"

Harry and Ron exchanged miserable, sideways glances; that was pretty irrefutable logic.

"Well it's all over the press now," continued Hermione, calculating, "especially with this morning's hoo-ha." She brightened. 'Well, as everyone thinks you're still going out with each other, you might as well do! After this morning's reports, it's not as though Voldemort's going to believe it if he suddenly hears that you two aren't together - Death Eaters read the newspapers too, you know, there isn't exactly a law against it!"

Harry desperately looked to Ron for help.

"Look, Hermione …" Ron looked at Harry for inspiration – and found none. 'Look," Ron persisted, "Harry's 17, it's not like … Look, Mum's having enough strain as it is. Can you imagine the strain of another wedding?" Harry nearly choked. _That was Ron's idea of an idea?_ "Most people don't marry the person they're going out with at 17 y'know!" Ron continued.

Hermione stared down at him, mouth moving as though she was shocked, but nothing came out.

"Well they _don't_," continued Ron, as though she was disagreeing with him when actually she hadn't said anything. "I don't see why you're so concerned anyway. She's _my_ sister, she's only your friend. Why is it so important to you? I mean, it's not as though we haven't got that whole _other matter_ going on. You know, _that_ one?"

Hermione's mouth snapped shut at being reminded of the Horcruxes and she swallowed and found her voice again. "Well," she looked carefully at Harry, "so long as you're not _upset_ about anything, I suppose …"

Harry couldn't see what that had to do with it but let it go, just happy enough to be off the Ginny-hook. As the matter of the Horcruxes had now been raised, the three of them spent the rest of the day in a war council, going over information and possibilities. _Muffliato_ became a way of life and Mrs. Weasley was heard complaining that – _of all the things I don't need right now!_ - she needed her ears syringed. "We should tell her it's hysterical deafness," Ron had muttered. Eventually they ended up back in Ron's bedroom, with _Muffliato_ in full use and Unstickable Charms on the door to prevent doors having 'extendable ears'. Hedwig was outside, having a sly kip on a shady branch. Crookshanks was off in the yard, hunting mice.

Harry had a sudden suspicion and looked up at Hermione sharply, "You haven't told Ginny anything, have you?"

"About what?" she reddened.

"About the _things?"_

"The what? Oh, the Hor – _oh,_ _of course I haven't!_ For heaven's sake, what kind of idiot do you take me for?" Hermione was practically spluttering, "D'you think I'd tell her anything _important?"_ Her face took on a slightly sour expression, "Anything you told her would probably end up in the _Daily Prophet_ as an exclusive!" Hermione sat down, annoyed.

Harry shot an embarrassed look in Ron's direction and coughed – Ginny was actually Ron's sister! "Anyway, let's keep focused. What matters is finding those Horcruxes, but if it gets out that -"

"Actually, Harry, just to start off on the right foot, the proper Latinate plural of Horcrux is Horcu_ces," _corrected Hermione. "The suffix 'x' is grouped under the third declension and -"

"So, if it gets out that we're looking for the Horcru_Xes_," said Harry, about to brook no odds with the niceties of Latin –

"- yeah," pitched in Ron, "let's not get too precious, Hermione -"

" – then we'll lose our chance as Voldemort will make certain we don't get them," continued Harry. "So that means we can't tell _anyone_. Before he died, Dumbledore told me only to confide in you two. He must've had his reasons, so even if he's not here to explain himself, I'm sticking to that plan."

Hermione looked doubtful. "Harry, I'm sure Dumbledore couldn't possibly have meant not to tell the Order."

"He said to tell only you two."

"But – but that was before he died! I don't think he meant 'not tell' _ever_!"

"Professor Dumbledore didn't even tell McGonagall about the Horcruxes."

"But we can't just blindly follow orders when they no longer make any sense. After the tower incident, don't you think Voldemort would have checked his Horcruces, just to make sure he still had them? What if he already knows they're missing? What if we're excluding trained wizards and hampering ourselves for nothing?"

It was clearly a very sensible point, but Harry rejected it.

"The Professor said not to speak."

"For heaven's sake, Harry. He was tired, old and _ill_. That burned hand had really damaged him. What makes you think he was thinking that clearly?" Hermione's tone heightened. "There were times when he wore that Horcrux ring in public! That was hardly secrecy! What if one of Voldemort's people had seen him wear it? What if it had gotten back to Voldemort?"

Harry wouldn't listen and was adamant. Hermione looked pained, but eventually fell silent on the matter.

The next few hours were spent going over the main points. Hermione listed them on a roll of parchment and when catching Harry's aghast look – 'We can't leave a list lying about for anyone to read, Hermione!' - insisted that she would _Incendio_ it immediately afterward. "Writing things down simply helps me clarify my thoughts, Harry! There's no point in having to remember it all as we go." She then lowered her voice so she was speaking almost under her breath, "As if you two _could_." There was a pause in which Harry and Ron slid each other sympathetic looks and Hermione readied herself, "Well, what are our facts? What do we know? Well," she became slightly more hesitant, "we could always share the precise wording of the prophecy?" She looked hopefully at Harry.

Harry looked at Ron, who shrugged. "Might as well. We're all in this together."

Harry flung an extra-hard Muffliato at the door and two at the window, just to make sure, and then, after steadying himself, he beckoned Ron and Hermione close to him – Hermione tense with intellectual anticipation. "It goes like this," he whispered. "_The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches … born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies … and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not … and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives … the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies …"_

"So it's true." Ron whispered, appalled. "It's kill or be killed? … Die or commit _murder_ …?" Ron then blinked, empty-faced with shock, "But – but how are you supposed to - ?"

How was he supposed to kill Voldemort?

How indeed. Harry looked away. He hadn't even been able to Crucio Snape that time after the tower. So how was he supposed to out-hex Voldemort? How was –

"What?" Hermione was aggrieved. "That's _it? _That's all there is to it? But that's …well, it's almost nonsense! For one thing there are _three_ unspecified cases – either and 'other' – but with no firm indication that they specify the same fixed objects! That's just -"

"Stuff the prophecy." Ron shifted into a determined grimness. "Those things are all bollocks. You could go barmy trying to figure them out. Look at that one about Wormtail running off to join Voldie-pants. We were all convinced it was Sirius, and look how that turned out! These prophecies, you can only tell how they were supposed to work out _after _they've happened. No-one's got time to waste on deciphering that crap. May as well just get on with the job in hand and see what happens later."

"Well …" Hermione sounded as though she were still feeling her way forward on it.

Ron caught Harry's whey-faced look and glared at her, "Drop it, Hermione."

Hermione barely swallowed her outrage, "Drop it? Since when have you done the thinking for this group!"

"Drop it," bit out Ron. "Talk about something else instead."

Hermione looked livid but eventually they did begin discussing the Horcrux hunt; it quickly became clear that Hermione's way – methodical, logical – was not the same as Harry's or Ron's which was quick, going on hunches, playing on instinct …'_We can just Accio them to us!' … 'Oh don't be absurd! You have to know where a thing is to Accio it!' … 'Let's brew up some __Felix Felicis__ – we'll find them then!' … 'It would take us six months to brew and if I get it wrong it's a lifetime of __bad__ luck! Slughorn must have started brewing that batch even before he knew he'd be a teacher!' … 'Well at least we know there are seven bits of soul'… 'Professor Dumbledore didn't know there were six Horcrux objects, he just suspected there were because the number seven is so magical!' … 'Well at least we already know what the Horcruxes are: the diary, the ring, the locket, the cup, Nagini' … 'The diary, the ring and the locket are definites, and the cup is practically a certainty but we don't know that Nagini is a Horcrux! …__'_

Harry's jaw had clenched but Hermione continued.

"What we _do_ know is that each Horcrux would have an associated death. We could track the Horcruces by Voldemort's murders: drawing up the names of who he killed."

"Fine! You want a list of Volder-Thingy killings?" snapped Ron, "Try Harry's Mum and Dad!"

There was a sudden, stiff silence in the room. Harry was very aware of Hermione watching him from under her brows, possibly to see if he was 'upset'.

"But I don't think they could have been Horcrux-deaths, though," commiserated Ron, quickly. "I mean, they were killed just before Voldemort was finished off, he didn't have time to make them into Horcrux-deaths. And I bet he'd already made all his Horcuxes -" he snapped a glare at Hermione – "all_ six_ of them! - by then anyway."

"Well, he _could_ have used them as Horcrux deaths," Hermione got out, annoyed, "because there was something very strange about Harry's mother's last words and -"

"_Hermione!"_ Ron gave a horrified half-whisper as he indicated Harry with a quick, covert jerk of his head.

"Well you were the one who brought it up!" wailed Hermione. "Why is it my fault for actually _analysing_ it?"

"Hermione, the _seven_ Horcruxes – well the six Object ones – were made before he came to my Mum and Dad's house that night to kill me." Harry sounded grimly decided upon it. "Let's just accept that, eh?" Hermione took in Harry's hardening expression and rather unwillingly crossed the names of his parents off her list.

Uncomfortable, Harry felt as though he ought to break the ensuing silence. "Find anything out about the Founders?" he asked. "I only got the usual: they set up the school, they had a big bust-up and Slytherin shoved off."

"Well, they developed the school," commented Hermione, primly – Harry sensed that she was just about suppressing an irritated sniff - "but a rift grew between Slytherin and the others as he wanted magical learning kept within magical families; well, that was the only type he personally wanted to teach, anyway. Salazar Slytherin presumably thought that Muggleborns were untrustworthy; it was a time of persecution against wizards and he only wanted to teach those he considered 'worthy'. Obviously Slytherin meant business, as he created the Chamber to house a weapon against Muggleborns: the Basilisk." She quoted her memory of the texts: _"'The heir alone would be able to unseal the Chamber of Secrets, unleash the horror within, and use it to purge the school of all who were unworthy to study magic._' Anyway, Slytherin and Gryffindor had a dispute about something, things came to a head, and Slytherin left the school."

Ron looked at her for long seconds, "So, as Harry said: they set up the school, they had a big bust-up, Slytherin shoved off."

Hermione looked exasperated, "Well I also discovered that the Houses are associated with the elements: Gryffindor with fire, Ravenclaw with air, Hufflepuff with earth and Slytherin with water - "

"Well, that'll make all the difference," snorted Ron.

Hermione's voice rose, "And if you must know," she went pink, "I discovered that Salazar Slytherin left Hogwarts partly after a falling out over Rowena Ravenclaw – well," she coughed, "he had _feelings_ for her and she didn't reciprocate them!"

Both Harry and Ron looked completely disbelieving.

"Well I read it in an ancient history of the wizards, so it must be true! It even had some very old portraits of the two of them -"

Ron scoffed, "Yeah, I can see that an in-depth knowledge of the personal lives of the Founders is really going to be the key to all this."

The hours of sniping exchanges rolled on …

'_Voldemort hid the Horcruxes in places that were significant to him, so let's come up with places Voldemort might have hidden a Horcrux' …_'_Well, I'd just bung 'em in a bank vault, that's what anyone normal'd do.' … 'Oh for heaven's sake, Ron, how ridiculous! But what about the orphanage?' … 'The orphanage! Only you could come up with that! Thingy hated that place. Honestly Hermione, you have to take people's feelings into account you know – even if You Know Who doesn't really have any …'_

Ron continued, growing more certain, "… but Hogwarts is an obvious place. It was special to him, it was place set up by the Founders …"

Harry felt a fog lift.

"Ron … you're a genius!" Harry punched the air. "It's obvious isn't it? – Hogwarts, it's got to be a hiding place! Besides, maybe Professor Dumbledore left some really important information behind? He'd leave it at Hogwarts, right? I'll bet he left it in his pensieve. If we go to Hogwarts we can get both!"

"In a pensieve?" yelped Hermione. "How absurd! He might as well have put a big arrow over it, labeled 'Snoop Within'!"

"Well, why wouldn't he use a pensieve?" snapped Ron. "All he has to do is hide it!"

Harry and Ron were excited at the thought that they'd just clearly pin-pointed a Horcrux hiding place. "And it gets even better!" said Ron. "Think about it! Thingy was mad-keen to stay at Hogwarts, he even tried to get that D.A.D.A. job when it came up again! There must be something really important at Hogwarts!" He was suddenly alight with inspiration, "The Sword of Gryffindor! We're missing a Gryffindor Horcrux and what's the only known heirloom of Godric Gryffindor – that sword! It all ties together!"

"Oh for heaven's sake," Hermione protested, "one of the first things Professor Dumbledore would have done was to check the Sword of Gryffindor. If it was a Horcrux, we'd already know it!"

"So?" Harry was not going to allow Hermione to puncture their enthusiasm. "The Professor had a lot on his mind, besides, he said the sword was safe – he didn't say it wasn't a Horcrux! It could've -" Harry stumbled for an explanation of something which did sound very unlikely, "it could've looked safe there, safe as in safe from Voldemort right now, but already been Horcruxed! Look - the sword is the only known relic of Godric Gryffindor – the Professor said so!" Harry beamed to Ron, "That's the first piece of Horcrux business after the wedding: get to Hogwarts!"

"Oh for heaven's sake, you two just want to take action – however stupid!"

"And another thing!" Ron was on a roll, "The cup! I've just remembered - _Mundungus Fletcher!"_ He turned to Harry, "Do you remember that day in Hogsmeade when you caught Mud flogging-off Sirius' stuff and you were well-narked?" Hermione abruptly sat up even straighter as Ron continued, "He had a cup! It was absolutely ancient!"

"Oh Ron!" Hermione snapped, "trust you to bring that up!" Harry looked at her in surprise, she sounded incredibly on-edge. She seemed to steady herself, "What I mean is – the cup Mundungus had was all wrong! The cups Sirius had were _fourteenth century_, hundreds of years too late if one was to have been the Hufflepuff cup! And as to the sword – has either of you considered that the Ring is really the Gryffindor Horcrux? It's a man's ring, it's associated with the Gryffindor element of fire -'

"What? The _ring?"_

"Oh stop making stuff up, Hermione! You just don't want us to be right about the sword, that's all!"

"_Making stuff up?"_ she snapped. "You want facts? Let's look at the most unassailable and most obvious fact that we have, shall we? The _fact_ that the real locket was already gone from the cave, and the _fact_ that the fake-locket had a note inside it, signed R.A.B.!"

Harry felt expression slide from his face.

_The cave … _The Inferi, the potion that he'd _made_ the Professor drink …

"Honestly, Hermione," spat Ron, flicking concerned looks at Harry, "do you always have to be so utterly blunt?"

Hermione gawped, "But I'm not blunt – I …"

"You are! You're famous for it! You've got no tact, you have no idea how people really feel -"

Harry's muttered his words, "S'alright Ron, let's just get on with it."

Hermione looked disconcerted and swallowed before she spoke. "Er … you do have the fake-locket with you, don't you, Harry?"

For a moment Harry didn't move, but then he silently shifted to hoik something out of the back-pocket of his jeans: the fake-locket. He always kept it on him as a constant spur. He tossed it on to the opposite bed, to Hermione. She picked it up and stilled for a second before she opened it.

As she read out the message, for once her voice sounded rather small.

"_To the Dark Lord, I know I will be dead long before you read this but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret. I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can. I face death in the hope that when you meet your match, you will be mortal once more. R.A.B."_

The room was silent for many seconds. Ron said nothing but instead watched Harry and waited; it was Hermione who actually spoke. "Well," she was tentative, even she knew that she was on delicate ground here but true to her nature she could not step back from pursuing a thing to what she saw as its logical conclusion: the note was a set of facts that must be unpacked. "I think we can deduce some things from this, if we're prepared to look at it openly." She continued in a more brisk tone, "For a start, the writer refers to Voldemort as 'the Dark Lord' and signs the note with their initials: both facts."

Harry felt his mouth press into a straight line. It was clear that Hermione had thought all this through in advance, she was patently leading them toward some conclusion she had already reached.

"R.A.B. evidently thoroughly expects Voldemort to know who he is from his initials alone," she continued, "as R.A.B. writes, '_I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret'_. Plus, another fact is that R.A.B.'s theft of the locket must have been before Voldemort's fall as the note is written very much as though R.A.B. believed Voldemort was alive." She visited her list again and gave a few quick, determined strokes of her quill. She paused and then looked up, speaking as though she was leading them to an obvious deduction, "So, what does that tell us?"

"Well, I don't know about you," Harry said, blandly, "but it tells me that whoever R.A.B was, then he's dead now, that the locket Horcrux probably hasn't been destroyed, but that there could easily be someone still alive who knows who R.A.B was, and who knows where that locket is."

From the startled look on Hermione's face, it was clear that they were not conclusions she had realised.

"I was in that cave," continued Harry, "the potion in the font was as good as lethal. I think that's what R.A.B. meant when he wrote '_I know I will be dead long before you read this' _and '_I face death' – _he knew that getting that locket would kill him one way or another, he must've written that note out before he tried to get it. And he didn't have time to destroy the Horcrux because I saw the condition the Professor was in after drinking that stuff – it was all he could do to walk, and he was the greatest wizard who ever lived. The Professor could have lived of course if _Snape_ hadn't -" Harry's tone became acid, but noticing how uncomfortable Hermione suddenly looked at his display of bad-temper, he collected himself and bit back his bitterness. "Anyway, I think it's a fair bet that R.A.B. died soon after taking that locket out of the cave."

"How do we know he even made it out of the cave?" Ron tentatively voiced something awful which had just occurred to him, "Those Inferi could've got him on the way out and dragged him under the lake."

"I don't think so," said Harry. "The Professor cast some pretty powerful spells in that cave. If the Horcrux had been somewhere there, I think he might have noticed."

Not unreasonably, Ron seemed very relieved that his fate was not to have to wrest the locket from the mindless, underwater grip of a hundred Inferi. Then he considered something else. "How do you know that someone else was with him?"

There was a while before Harry spoke, "Because the only way to get the locket was to completely drain the font by drinking all the potion in it. But no-one could have made themselves carry on drinking after about the third cup. After that -" his voice faltered, "after that … someone else had to force you to drink it."

Harry could feel Ron's stare upon him.

"So you see," continued Harry, his tone now very controlled, "someone else must have been there, because someone else had to make R.A.B. drink the stuff. That other person – whoever he is – might still be alive; he is the one who might know where the locket is."

"Or _she_," that was Hermione. "The other person might be a woman, not a man, and R.A.B. might be a woman too, so let's not refer to R.A.B. as 'he', it prejudices our thinking. Remember the Half-Blood _Prince?"_

Ron turned on Hermione: given that Harry was obviously upset and for pretty clear reasons, scoring points over 'he' or 'she' at this moment struck him as petty and cruel. Hermione caught his glance, "Oh don't look at me like that," she cried, "Harry said himself how much is at stake here – everything is at stake! We have to be logical in this because logic is all we have! We can't make any more mistakes!"

"Oh that does it!" snapped Ron. "I've had enough!" He mimicked her voice, _"We can't make any more mistakes?_ – listen to yourself! You made a mistake over not believing Harry about Malfoy! That's what this is all about! Well just live with the fact that you blew it and stop trying to control everything!"

"Draco Malfoy? – I -" Hermione's words stumbled, as though she was lost for a second, then she gathered herself. "We've only got the facts. We can't ignore the obvious fact given what we know from R.A.B.'s note – _that R.A.B._ _must have been a Death Eater!"_

There was an aghast silence from Harry and Ron and then their words tumbled over each other, each boy's voice almost indistinguishable in their angry disbelief.

"A good Death Eater? That's cracked! Why would a Death Eater turn against Vol – Thingy?"

"Yeah, at the time R.A.B. made his move, Voldemort was at the height of his powers! _He was winning!_"

"R.A.B. must have been someone Voldemort knew!" Hermione's voice was high and shaking but she would not back down. "He called Voldemort 'The Dark Lord' – only Death Eaters call him that! He expected Voldemort to know him by his initials alone!"

"The only initials Death Eaters have is B.A.D.!" snapped Ron.

"You two won't see it because you just don't want to!" she cried. "You just won't accept that a Death Eater could turn their back on Voldemort and be a hero!"

Before he knew what he was about, Harry suddenly found himself looming over Hermione, his face contorted, "_And Snape is the absolute proof that we are right! He fooled everyone for years but then he murdered the Professor! You're wrong Hermione! WRONG! Just admit it! Stop causing trouble and just accept the fact! JUST SEE IT OUR WAY AND STOP TRYING TO BE CLEVER!" _

Hermione's hand flew to her mouth and for a second her face was all eyes. Harry took a confused, half-step back. In that pause, Hermione lurched to her feet, freshly angry. "Make_ Felix Felicis?"_ she raged at both Harry and Ron, "I wouldn't even try making Wit-Sharpening Potion if I were you two! Especially without your _Half-Blood Prince_ to help you!" She shot a scathing glance at Harry, evidently Harry's falsely-earned reputation as a potions-whizz still rankled. "Knowing you two, you'd mix it up all wrong and end up with Wit-_Dulling_ Potion - you'd end up stupider than Crabbe and Goyle!" She stalked out, shoving past both of them as she went.

In the sudden quiet, Harry and Ron slowly caught each other's eye. They heard a door slam below. In the reverberating silence each lad began to feel slightly ashamed at how he had behaved in shouting her down, but Hermione was no longer there to apologise to; there was just a gap where she used to be.

As night drew in, Harry and Ron uncomfortably circled about the house, trying to talk to Hermione without actually going through the motions of having to apologise. Hermione was having none of it and kept stalking off. At one point Harry saw her talking animatedly to Ginny, with Hermione firing off nasty looks at he and Ron.

Harry felt uneasy. He kept recalling how Malfoy had tried to ditch the Death Eaters on the tower-top. He hadn't told Hermione that – she didn't know Malfoy had tried to change and that it sort of proved her point. Malfoy had tried to turn, even at the point when he'd been at his most powerful, even at the point when he'd held the Professor helpless and all he'd had to do to cement his position was carry on going. But … _that didn't count!_ Harry was very firm with himself. Draco Malfoy _wasn't_ a Death Eater! Well – not a _real_ one! He was just some stupid boy who had gotten in over his head!

Harry wouldn't have it that there could be a hero Death Eater, one who had turned – not a proper Death Eater, not one like Snape.

Dinner, when it came, was as uncomfortable as it had been the night before.

Afterward, Harry huddled in a chair by the fire. Far away in a corner he could see Ron and Hermione holding a hissed, vehement conversation. Hermione hissing and vehement while Ron grinned queasily and tried to make it seem as though they were having a conversation.

'_Er … Mum's hunting out all the spare old wands in the family. Seeing as Ollivander's not here anymore do you want old Uncle Bilius' as a spare: oak with Unicorn hair?' … 'Oh don't be absurd! I'm vine around a dragon's heart-string – haven't you noticed!'_

Harry scanned the room and saw Ginny looking at him. Catching his eye, she gave a nervous, tentative half-smile and made an uncertain move toward him.

He was out of his seat, across the room and off upstairs to bed before she could even come close.

"She's barmy."

"Which one: your Mum, your girlfriend or your sister?"

Both lads lay morosely on their beds, staring up at the low, slanting ceiling in the dark. They could hear the ghoul half-heartedly moaning overhead. "Never mind him," said Ron, "he's a bit upset, what with the pressure of the wedding and everything. Thank God it's tomorrow – it'll be like a storm finally breaking. I don't know what's gotten into them, especially Ginny and Hermione; it's like they're waiting for an axe to fall."

"Is Hermione okay now?" Harry's voice was tentative.

"Just about; she gave me earache for half an hour. Apparently, now she's my girlfriend 'I don't treat her the way I used to'. Truth is, I think the real problem is that I still treat her exactly the way I used to, and that's what she doesn't like. I think she needs us 'going out' to feel special – but how can it be when we're the same people we always were?"

Harry shifted and propped himself up on his elbow; through a faintly dirty window and his own short-sightedness he viewed the huge, marquee tent which had been magically erected in The Burrow's paddock for the Reception. There was a paddock for Thestrals too, as wizards would be traveling from all over. The whole was protected by anti-Muggle charms, Secret Keeper charms, and Invisibility Barriers. It looked a very impressive affair. He wiped the grimy film from the window for a better view. "I know it might be a sore point, Ron, but I don't get it, how are your mum and dad affording all this stuff?"

Harry knew that the Weasleys were not poverty-stricken, but they were strapped for cash.

"Er …" Ron looked across at Harry and suddenly shifted uncomfortably. "Well, see, we got the loan of the Hogwarts house-elves, but mostly because … Look, don't lose your rag mate. Honest, the only reason I didn't tell you was because -"

Harry felt weary, "Just spit it out, Ron. Compared to what we've had so far, how bad can it be?"

"Well … me, Bill, Dad, all us blokes in the family really, we all think it's a rubbish idea but …" Ron swallowed and pushed the rest of his words out in a rush as though they would somehow be less shocking if he could just cram them all together. "We can afford the posh wedding mostly because Mum's persuaded Bill and Fleur to accept a deal from the _Daily Prophet_ giving exclusive reporting rights on the Reception."

"What?" Harry shot up and turned to Ron.

"Yeah, that's right," Ron steadied himself to deliver the words even he couldn't really believe, "Rita Skeeter's got an invite to the wedding."


	8. Chapter 8

Title: (Chapter 08)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP. Beta: Anise. Test-reader: SUM.  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Chapter 8**

The noise in the Reception tent was so loud it was like something actually pressing against Harry's ears: the roar of hundreds of gossiping wizards, each one having to shout to be heard over the bellow of all the rest.

Despite latent fears of a Death Eater attack, the wedding ceremony had gone off without a hitch. Some people were beginning to say that all the talk of You Know Who was just war-mongering. A few wags were already referring to him as You _Knew_ Who.

Security was stringent though: Scrimgeour was in charge of the Ministry and he took the war effort very seriously. Anyone entering the huge tent had to walk through a magic-detector which looked like the metal detectors used at Muggle airports. It was supposed to go off if it detected anything like unauthorised potions, such as Polyjuice, and also anything akin to a Dark Magic object. Even wands were not allowed. Harry and the Weasleys had left theirs back at The Burrow and the guests had to deposit theirs in secure storage outside: like Muggles dropping off bulky bags as they entered an art gallery. As a further security measure, drinks were being randomly tested: even if someone got a potion through the arch – impossible – chances were that they'd be caught if they had a flask on them. The drinks-detectors were far more sensitive than the one Filch had been using at Hogwarts; there would be no such thing as disguising love potion as perfume and getting away with it - not this time.

On arrival, each individual was pompously announced by a Major Domo hired for the occasion. As Harry watched, three young men came through and were all announced: Martin Frobisher and John Hawkins – both Curse Breakers, (Martin was Bill's Best Man) – and Francis Dashwood. Each was checked by a Leglimens and had to give an individually allocated password. Harry had already had to go in and out twice himself – once to go the loo and last time to see a slightly sulky Hedwig and give her a bit of wedding cake. As Harry casually watched, a house-elf scampered around the arch and past the security group, hastening in with a much-needed drinks tray. True to wizard form, the elf was kicked out of the way by an annoyed Auror.

Sometimes Harry thought that Hermione did have a point about S.P.E.W. Her methods were a bit extreme – counter-productive actually – but her heart was in the right place.

The argument of the night before had been glossed over, and she was now talking to Harry and Ron - just.

Everyone was dressed-up, but Hermione had put such an effort into her appearance that Harry and Ron had found her almost unrecognisable. She was wearing a long, pale blue, floaty-type dress with, by Hermione's standards, a low-ish neckline. She also had a shawl-type thing, a hatty thing and she had evidently used liberal amounts of Sleekeazy's Hair Potion as her normally bushy hair hung smoothly down her back. Hermione had even gotten Crookshanks 'dressed up' for the occasion. He was skulking about the Reception tent with a great big taffeta bow around his neck, looking rather grumpy about it.

She was nervous about the dress though, her fingers kept twitching at the neckline. Back at The Burrow, before the wedding, she had kept asking Mrs. Weasley if she thought the neckline was too low. Mrs. Weasley – her mouth full of pins as she hemmed up a last-minute frill - had glanced at it, rolled her eyes and hurried on saying something about _'only if collar-bones are considered indecent'_ before going on the scream at George for making a mess of the kitchen by leaving Weasleys' test-products about.

"It's only Darkness Powder mum – we're testing an improved batch! I'll put it away later!" 

They had all been in a rush anyway, with school starting the next day they'd all had to make a show of packing, or claiming they'd packed, even though he, Ron and Hermione were not going back.

Hermione had put on a lot of Wonder Witch make-up: it had been well-applied – being Hermione, she had applied it with the exactitude of an exercise in Arithmancy - but it had somehow made her look too perfect to be true.

Harry and Ron had been surprised by Hermione's appearance. They were used to Hermione looking a certain way and it threw them off-balance when she took it upon herself to try and look like, well, a _girl._

"Steady on, Hermione," Ron had said, "don't go overboard."

Hermione had gone red and - "Oh, for heavens - I'm over 17, aren't I allowed to even _try_ and look – I make an effort and you just laugh and -" She had angrily swiped the cosmetics from her face, frustratedly rubbing at it, smearing her lipstick like a pink stain, so angry she seemed almost about to burst into tears. "There!" she screeched. "_Happy now?_"

She had stormed off, leaving Harry and Ron to look blankly at each other.

Harry was slightly embarrassed at the knowledge that Hermione had later – when they were back to talking again, though very stiffly - actually put some of her super-duper Wonder Witch make-up on him. She'd put it on his forehead, hiding his scar with it. She had sniffed that it would save him being hauled up by hundreds of strangers shrieking, "Aren't you Harry Potter?"

It had worked. With his scar 'gone', he had spent the Reception bumping about like a pinball, with group after group of adults ignoring his presence as 'just another Hogwarts school-kid'. It annoyingly made him recall all the taunts Malfoy had ever made about it: that the only thing special about him was being 'Scarhead'.

After the 'wedding breakfast', the Reception had devolved into the usual scrum. Tables now lay covered in streamers and empty bottles. Hundreds of people milled about. There were a few chairs overturned and an ice-carved dragon, standing as a huge, central decoration, had started to melt so now it looked more like an over-large duckling.

House-elves were everywhere, scampering between clumps of wizards, toting trays laden with nibbles and various drinks, keeping the party well-oiled. Each wore their lovingly darned and spotless Hogwarts tea towels. The exception was Dobby with his many hats, layered jumpers and, in honour of the occasion, the maroon socks Ron had once given him for Christmas.

Harry had waved to him as he passed and Dobby had waved back.

Harry couldn't see Kreacher, and as he never wore a Hogwarts tea cloth but instead almost religiously clung to his ancient and filthy Black-family loincloth, Harry assumed he would have spotted him if he were there. Harry recalled that he hadn't actually seen Kreacher since he'd relieved him of his duty to tail Draco Malfoy with an exasperated cry of 'get out of it', having previously forbidden him to 'tip him off … or to show him what you're up to, or to talk to him at all, or to write him messages, or to contact him in any way.' He now thought that if only he hadn't told Dobby and Kreacher to stop tailing Malfoy, then he could have found Malfoy by simply asking them where he was.

In the crush, Harry had been split off from Ron and Hermione and was now looking about him. Although 'everyone' was there – apparently it was one of the social events of the year, being a wedding between two pure-bloods - Harry found he knew hardly anyone. The crowd was a barging morass of ladies hats, braying laughter and loud conversation. A _Daily Prophet_ news-article team darted about, taking photographs and gathering quotes. Harry dipped his face away from them, hoping he was inconspicuous with his scar hidden and wearing his sober, borrowed robes. Harry had thought the robes wouldn't fit, but in essence Percy was the tall, lanky type of Weasley and in the end they had fitted well-enough.

At a distance he saw Fred with a narrow, thin, sleek-looking, dark-haired young woman – was that his girlfriend, the one with the Pygmy-Puff connection?

"Hello Harry!"

Harry swiveled and felt a slight shock at Remus' appearance: there was a greyish tinge to his complexion and a slightly sunken look about the eyes. He looked very tired.

"Congratulations about Potions and Head of House!" roared Harry, trying to sound enthusiastic.

Remus flashed an effortful grin and gave the thumbs-up, but like a lot of the unmarried men at the wedding, he had developed a vaguely manic, hunted look. "Tonks! I've had two-weeks of dress-hysteria and a panic about her hair this morning. I mean, for God's sake, she's a Metamorphmagus! Why is she getting fraught about her hair and her frock – she can disguise anything about herself in under a second!" Harry knew that was true – one of the first things he'd ever seen Tonks do was metamorphose into an old woman, clothes and all. "And now I've lost her! If I don't find her I'll only cop it for 'abandoning her at the wedding'. I mean – _she has pink hair!_ – how can I lose her in a crowd?"

"Well, that is pink hair in a sea of pink, yellow and blue hats," ventured Harry.

"Amazed she hasn't turned her nose into an elephant's trunk and start waving it about, attracting attention to herself _that _way!" Remus spat. "Always chattering and yattering. I wouldn't mind, but she never really wants to talk _to_ me – she just wants to talk _about_ stuff. I mean – really. Even stuff about _Snape_. It's as though I'm just some source of information and not even a person!"

He was surprised at Remus' tone. Remus caught himself and Harry knew that he was embarrassed at his outburst. Remus' face clouded, Harry wondered if he ought to say something to try and change the subject but then - "Harry … I know this isn't the time but … the Professor left a will and in it he left this to you."

Harry felt as though he'd been physically hit when he saw the Peverell ring proffered on Remus' open palm. Unbeknown to Remus, it was the Horcrux ring which Professor Dumbledore had destroyed, nearly killing himself in the process. Harry stared at it as though it were some small, nasty animal that might bite.

"Well, if it upsets you that much, Harry, I don't suppose you need take it."

Harry snatched it before Remus could entertain any further speculations. As he swept it up it felt oddly heavy in his hand. He could sense Remus still giving him a very strange look and shoved the ring in a pocket and glossed over the moment, "Any leads on the Death Eaters?"

"Well, all the known Death Eaters have gone to ground, including the Malfoy boy." Remus grew pensive. "I know the Malfoy boy was a very unpleasant person, he did create a great deal of trouble with Buckb – er, Wither -"

Harry instantly forgot any thought for Malfoy, "– Yeah," he interrupted, "there was nothing wrong with Malfoy's arm! He was just putting it on, pretending he was injured for months, just to get Hagrid into trouble!"

Remus looked across in surprise, "Oh, but - that was a genuine injury, Harry. It took months to heal. Every time Poppy Pomfrey took the bandages off, the slash in his arm just opened up again and bled like the dickens. It was very frightening." Remus gave Harry a puzzled look. "Did the school children really believe that Poppy Pomfrey was going to take any nonsense from a thirteen-year-old Draco Malfoy? She wouldn't have stood for shirking for a second! Certainly not over such an important matter as a Hippogriff's life!"

Harry's mouth opened and then closed: now that Remus had put it that way, it did seem absurd.

"It's a pity. All told, he was rather a good all-rounder. He was the second-best Seeker to you, and he was certainly never a stupid boy. He was a more than half-way decent spell-man and underneath all the bluster and wild arm-waving he had a certain shrewdness which most others lacked. Anyway, I don't suppose any of it matters because he's lost now. I don't know what it would take to save him -"

"_GET READY GIRLS, IT'S A DIRTY JOB BUT ONE OF YOU HAS TO DO IT!"_

Both Remus and Harry swiveled toward the great shout. The bridal bouquet was in the air and someone caught it. Neither waited to see who had.

In the confusion and jostle, they got split up and Harry angrily dug his hands in his pockets and met with the cold, hard metal of both the ring and the false-locket. One defunct Horcrux, one false Horcrux …there seemed to be something about him which attracted the damned things!

Squeezing between a throng of wizards he saw Charlie Weasley talking to one of Bill's friends – the Francis Dashwood who had been announced earlier. As Harry slid by, he overheard their conversation about dragons. Dashwood was genuinely enthusiastic on the subject, "I've got dozens of books on them," he roared, trying to out-shout several hundred people at once, "though I'm not a specialist of course, not like you! … I hear the Horntail is a very nervous species…?" As he struggled past, Harry could hear Dashwood roaring on, _" … it was horrible! Say what you like about Muggles – and lord knows I have - but at least they banned bear-baiting centuries ago! At that Goblet tournament, those dragons were nursing mothers! One destroyed half her own eggs in a panic!" _

Harry moved on.

All over the huge tent, the Ministry people, having decided they had nothing in common except work, were comfortably taking about that.

'_We raided Mortlake again! Caught him with those ferrets a while back and slapped a fine on him, but since then he's either gone straight or gotten even cleverer. I've told him though, if I catch him contravening the Ban on Experimental Breeding again …__'_

Harry scuttled away, straight into another Ministry conversation.

'_How's Cho? You know, Cho Chang? Very pretty, very bright! Li Chang's daughter! Someone told me that your son, Michael, was seeing her.'_ Harry vaguely remembered Ginny Weasley saying at some point that Cho was dating Michael. Corner's father, however, looked extremely puzzled. _'What? I don't know any Cho, old boy! Michael's girlfriend is called Mathilda!'_ …

Harry moved on again.

'_A truly wonderful boy! Only child. Born late to us, just when we'd given up. 'A gift', my wife said. He was in Hufflepuff, the House of the good all-rounder. Always a fair House, always willing to give a half-way decent chap a second chance … Head Boy, Quidditch Captain, Seeker, School Champion in the Triwizard Tournament -' _

Harry looked about. That had to be Amos Diggory talking. Harry was still looking about for him when he was stopped short by another conversation.

'_Yes, old boy, the Imperius job on Madam Rosmerta was performed by someone very gifted.' _

Harry immediately had to forget about Mr. Diggory, instead he sidled behind a huge _Felinus Tactus: _a plant which purred when you stroked its leavesHe hoped that in the noise no-one would hear it purring away as he hid behind it. He shamelessly eaves-dropped.

"It was such a good job that she couldn't recall anything she'd done! As well as everything else, she'd been Imperiused to erase her true memories of incriminating events and to replace them with perfectly innocuous ones! She knows, because we told her, that she tried to kill Dumbledore by sending him that poisoned booze and that she nearly killed the Bell girl by slipping her the Mortimer Necklace, but she can't remember that she did any of it! She feels terrible, of course. She's gone into seclusion really, just stays above the pub. She didn't go to Dumbledore's funeral, even though his death upset her dreadfully; too ashamed to because of her involvement in it all."

Madame Rosmerta was the curvy, pretty, easy-going proprietress of The Three Broomsticks: all high-heels and sequins with lockets bobbing about her cleavage.

Draco Malfoy had said that she had been Imperiused into aiding him.

"Did they ever find that coin, the one the Malfoy boy was using to communicate with her?"

"No, old bean! She must have been Imperiused to throw it away when Malfoy realised the game was up, and like all her Imperiused actions, she then erased it from her memory and replaced it with perfectly normal memories. It was a beautiful job someone did on her. From what she can remember, you'd think she'd never been Imperiused at all!"

Harry was distracted by a flash of bright pink: it was Tonks in the mid-distance, dancing frenziedly and frenetically, accompanied by a knackered-looking Remus. By the time Harry had returned his attention to the conversation about Rosmerta, the gossiping Ministry wizards had been swept away by the milling of the crowd and replaced by a group made up of others and someone Harry knew only too well: Rita Skeeter.

Bugger! He should have known she'd turn up sooner or later - she had, after all, been invited.

Rita Skeeter was a shamelessly hypocritical, scurrilous reporter who was also an unregistered Animagus: a beetle. Hermione had used that information to blackmail Rita into giving up reporting for a year. Now she was back on form: a glass of elf-wine in one hand, cigarette in the other, crocodile-skin handbag hooked over her arm, and sniffing for news.

"Not trying to interview the Potter boy, Rita?"

"Wouldn't waste my time on him, Quintus. The difficult little sod's hardly the talkative type!"

Harry was about to move off when Rita gave a grim smile and switched topics. "So, will Dolores Umbridge wage a campaign to get the Head-ship off McGonagall?"

Harry jolted to a halt.

"She wouldn't get the job even if she did want it -"

Harry felt a slump of relief.

"- Rufus doesn't see her as quite the right sort for the times. He never did like her. Plus all that embarrassing nonsense about centaurs she keeps coming out with! Honestly! Woman's obsessed! The _'Four Legged Fiend'_ she calls them. Brought that attack down upon herself, is what I've hear.! In any case, Rufus feels that now is the time to be raising a strong wizarding nation, not a bunch of little goodie-two-shoes appeasers who are too scared to sling a spell."

Rita took a drain on her wine-glass, "How does Scrimgeour feel about Potter and that 'boy saviour' thing?"

"Thinks Potter's more trouble than he's worth." - Harry's eyes widened - "Take that malarkey at the Department of Mysteries! Never did get to the bottom of what really went on – but I know one thing, all the bally Time-Turners were destroyed! What a waste! No-where near time enough to generate any new ones since, of course. There are rumours of unauthorised ones left out there – always that rumour that Dumbledore kept one under wraps at Hogwarts for use with students' lessons, but you try getting anyone to admit it. Anyhow, what's the betting that the Potter boy's just one big red-herring? Realistically, it's going to take a lot more than a single boy acting alone to finish all this! - Ah – and there's the very man himself!"

Harry jerked: for a horrible second he thought they'd spotted him, but then he realised that they were talking about Scrimgeour. The Minister himself had arrived at the Reception!

Far across the tent, the Major Domo drew in a huge breath that swelled him like a bull-frog, "Please be upstanding for the Minister of Magic, _Rufus Walsingham Scrimgeour!"_


	9. Chapter 9

Title: (Chapter 09)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP. Beta: Anise. Test-read: SUM.  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Chapter 9**

Over the next few minutes, Harry concentrated on keeping an eye on Scrimgeour as the Minister moved smoothly about the tent, pressing the flesh and stroking egos, consolidating his power-base even at a wedding-reception. Harry was keen to avoid another of Scrimgeour's politically motivated 'offers' that Harry should co-operate with the Ministry. Harry had turned him down plenty of times now – and Scrimgeour was clearly getting increasingly frustrated about it.

"Now _that_ is one of the coming men under Scrimgeour's government," nodded a wizard. Harry stood on his toes and craned his neck to see Scrimgeour now talking to - _Francis Dashwood!_ Dashwood was Ministry? – Harry had thought he was a Cursebreaker! "Definitely on the rise, is young Dashwood. Looks like Percy Weasley's finally got some career competition!"

Harry saw Dashwood talking easily to Scrimgeour, while Percy Weasley – wow, Percy had actually turned up? – looked on sourly in the background. Harry saw Dashwood rest a hand on Scrimgeour's shoulder in an easy, male gesture of farewell. Scrimgeour grinned and turned away, Dashwood disappeared back into the crowd.

Harry nearly gave his position away by laughing when he clearly saw Dashwood secretly wiping his hand clean!

This was too perfect! An up and coming young Ministry figure? And one who might have an ambiguous view of Scrimgeour? He sidled away and set off toward Dashwood.

Wriggling across the tent, he was distracted by the sight of a house-elf scurrying about – its gait a distinctive mix of flat-footed waddle and scamper.

_Kreacher?_

The elf had disappeared before Harry could check, but Harry decided it wasn't Kreacher, largely because he couldn't stand the idea of being embarrassed by Kreacher's eventual, inevitable screaming about 'filth'. Besides, the elf had been wearing the Hogwarts 'H' and Harry couldn't imagine what it would take to get Kreacher to even temporarily give up his soiled 'Black' loin-cloth.

As he approached Dashwood, Harry was able to see that Dashwood was standing near a group which included Mr. Weasley and Mad-Eye Moody.

Harry jolted to a halt because he also saw that Hermione was hovering unacknowledged at the edge of the group, still tugging uncomfortably at her neckline, face painfully bare of make-up amidst the sleek-looking women all about her. Harry hung back, he didn't want to get sucked down into a conversation about the poor lives of house-elves, his aim was to talk to Dashwood.

Harry could see Dashwood surveying the group, listening to Mr. Weasley with an inscrutable expression: '_ … the brightest witch of her age…'_

Mr. Weasley was talking about Hermione? Didn't he realise she was there?

'… _Her grandfather was at Bletchley Park during the Second Great Muggle War, you know? Code breaker. Must have saved millions of lives. Her family are the best sort of Muggle …'_

Harry saw Hermione lurch away.

Dashwood coolly watched her go.

Watching the group, Harry noticed that Moody was still in the habit of drinking only from his own flask; Moody thought that drinking from any unattended glass was just asking to be poisoned or potioned. Harry saw that Dashwood was now watching Mad-Eye levelly.

"Do you know him?"

At Harry's words, Dashwood's eyes widened fractionally and his hand swung up as though to ward off a blow. But Dashwood was simply taking a drink from a small shot-glass hidden in the palm of his hand. He drained it in one swallow, winced at the sour taste – Harry could sympathise, Firewater wasn't his favourite drink – eyed the empty glass as though it was an encumbrance, took aim and successfully lobbed it into the moat of ice-water at the base of the far-off ice-dragon.

He immediately checked his watch as though making certain of the time: reflexively, Harry checked his own, it was exactly on the hour.

Dashwood hadn't answered Harry's initial question and Harry tried again. He nodded in the direction of the ice-dragon, "Nice throw."

Dashwood shrugged but turned away and gave no reply.

"Er…" Harry stumbled but tried to brighten, "Do you play Quidditch?"

"No."

"Er … do you have any hobbies?"

"No."

Harry felt slightly flustered. "Er … so, do you know Mad-Eye, then?"

"I know that he's very quick to lash out."

Harry thought that was unfair if you knew the real Mad-Eye, but it certainly had been true of that nutter Barty Crouch, masquerading as Moody. Uncomfortable at Dashwood's defensive response, he tried to shift to a less contentious topic. "What Ministry Department are you in, then?"

Dashwood's lip quirked and there was a rolling of the eyes, "The Department of Cunning Plans."

Okay, even Harry knew that it wasn't going well. Disconcerted, he remembered seeing Dashwood talking to Charlie about dragons, "Hear you're interested in dragons?"

"How on earth do you know that?" Dashwood turned sharply.

"Er … I heard you earlier. You were talking to Charlie Weasley."

"Do you usually listen in on other people's conversations?" Dashwood sounded as though he couldn't choose what to be more: alarmed or outraged.

Harry started to feel ill at ease, he wiped his hand against his robe and held it out to Dashwood, "Hi, I'm Harry Potter."

Dashwood looked down at Harry's hand as though he'd just tried to slip him a dead cat. "I don't think I'll take your hand, Potter. I don't need it, I've already got at least two of my own."

There was a pause but then Dashwood's mouth shifted as though swallowing unpleasant medicine, "Well then. So, Potter. What are your plans now? Going back to school? Off elsewhere?"

Harry blinked owlishly.

"Oh, for heaven's …" Dashwood rolled his eyes, turned from Harry and, switching gears, smoothly hailed a passing girl. "Evadne, isn't it?" The girl stopped, puzzled but not unpleased. "Francis Dashwood," Dashwood introduced himself, "from the Ministry? Your brother, Edgar, works in the Department of Magical Games and Sports …?" He walked off, taking the now flattered-looking girl with him. Harry blinked and looked about, finding to his deep embarrassment that he'd been left stranded. Again.

"_Luna!" _

His own shout caught him by surprise – he recalled someone saying that she'd be at the wedding!

She seemed to float through the frantic crowd in her own cool, faintly dreamy space. He fought his way over to her as she stopped and craned about to see who had called her. Her high, clear voice seemed to travel effortlessly over the babble, "Oh, hello Harry!" She looked about, "I'm very pleased to meet you. I find I know hardly anyone here, and if I do run across someone I've met before, I find I've got nothing to say. How very odd."

Harry laughed, relieved that he wasn't the only one also feeling the strain. "Look, this place is a mad-house," he pointed to a corner that looked slightly quieter, "Let's go over there!" Before she could say anything he put a hand on her shoulder and steered them both through the crush. "Favourite childhood toys?" he called out to her as they went, his mouth close to her ear but still having to shout to be heard.

"What?" she called, voice high and puzzled.

Harry mimicked a mock-outrage, "Heavens' sake Lovegood, we're having a conversation, you can at least _try_ and keep up your end of the deal! What were your favourite childhood toys? I read somewhere that you're supposed to ask about the other a person in a conversation – get their life-story. Well, for someone who believes in Snorkacks and," what had she said to him once? – "Nargles, you must have quite a story to tell …"

They reached the safety of the corner and Harry listened to Luna telling him about a woolen zebrasnuff her mother had hand-knitted for her: blue and yellow stripes with red and green buttons for eyes. Harry said little but just nodded along encouragingly. He always felt as though he didn't need to actually _say_ that much around Luna … he didn't feel he had to be anything special with her.

He tilted his head as he watched her. He'd not seen that much of her last year – he'd been too busy faddling about. But they'd gone to Slughorn's Christmas party together, he'd really enjoyed it – she had too, hadn't she? She'd been really happy when he'd asked her. And she'd offered to kiss him that time under the mistletoe in his fifth-year …

"Are you alright, Harry?" Luna was looking up at him. "You suddenly look rather odd."

"No I don't!" He reflexively wiped his arm across his forehead – God, he still didn't have that face-paint on did he? – that would make any bloke look weird!

"Well, you do a little, you know. Somewhat alarmed."

Harry gave an abrasive, defensive, jolting laugh, "Well you can talk! What about you - '_Loony'!"_

He could have kicked himself. He was rowing with Luna Lovegood? But this wedding-reception was so unsettling and -

Luna gazed up at him and blinked in her slow, unperturbed way, "There are times when you can be rather abrupt, you know, Harry. And you can be terribly ill-tempered on occasion too. Of course, I do totally support you in standing against Voldemort, but at times you can be terribly rude."

"What?" 

"Well, you can be," she said in a calm way.

"_Me?_ You're the one calling names!"

"But I'm not calling you names."

"You are! You said I was rude and bad-tempered!"

"But I didn't call you rude and bad tempered, Harry. I said that there are times when you _behave_ like that, not that rude and bad tempered is what you _are_."

"What's the difference! Saying I behave like that is saying I am like that – it's the same thing! And anyway -" through his increasing frustration he felt there was something important he was missing here – "You didn't exactly mind coming to Slughorn's party with me, did you?"

It almost sounded like an accusation.

"Well, why would I mind it? I really liked it."

"Didn't mind the thought of kissing me under the mistletoe that time either!" he snorted.

Luna coloured slightly pink. "Well, that was rather a while ago, Harry. I used to like you 'like that' but a girl can go off a person, you know. Besides, when we went to the Christmas party, you made it very clear that you were only inviting me 'as a friend'. You made it very clear that you weren't asking me out." Her voice shifted back into its usual dreamy tones, "I might not have gone if I thought you had been."

Harry gawped at her. She blithely didn't even mind admitting having liked him 'like that'? And then she didn't mind insulting him by making it perfectly clear that she didn't fancy him now?

"And then of course you started going out with Ginny," she went on in her tranquil tones, "And she _is _still your girlfriend. Though you going out with her was rather sudden and unexpected. It was rather shocking, the way you used to kiss her - not that I was deliberately _looking_ you understand." She coughed and went slightly pinker, "But you _were_ very public about it. I mean it was rather … Seamus Finnegan said you were using her like a," she took a breath, "like a '_snogdoll_'. Kissing Ginny all over the school…"

Harry decided he was going to thrash Seamus Finnegan when he caught up with him.

Luna tilted her head and looked up at him keenly, a bit like an anthropologist meeting a new culture for the first time but eager to learn. "Are you one of those boys who's 'fast'? One of those boys who 'chalks them up' for 'experience'?" Harry was open-mouthed. He certainly was _not!_ "Well, anyway," sighed Luna, "I said I'd meet Neville -"

"What's _he _got to do with it?" Harry felt outraged.

"Well he's here," – was he? – _where?_ – Harry was annoyed that he hadn't managed to meet him, he really liked Neville - "and I rather like Neville, he's very kind."

"Oh,fine!" Harry yelped. "Go on, trot along after Neville I'm-So-Kind Longbottom! Maybe you'll _like_ him more than you _like_ me!"

Harry was stunned when Luna took him at his word and calmly walked off. He opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water as her head bobbed out of sight amid the thick crowd.

Luna Lovegood was walking away from him?

How the hell had that happened?

Vexed, he shot past Rita Skeeter again. From the corner of his eye he could see that she'd hit the Firewater now and was slugging it back, eyes narrowing appraisingly, _"Am I the only one who thought the timing of Amelia Bones' death was a bit …"_ He hurried on and heard Moody's growl over to his right … "_I'll shoot a man, but I don't like the way some of these young Aurors are so keen to do it – they're supposed to be law-enforcers not hired guns! But there they are, trained in the use of Unforgivables and gung-ho about using them _…"

Ten minutes later he was struggling through a jostle of wizards when a hand clamped down so hard on his shoulder that it swung him about.

"_YOU GOT MY SON KILLED AND NOW I HEAR THAT YOU WON'T EVEN HELP THE MINISTRY?" _

Mr. Diggory, now drunk, looked wild, his spit flicking in Harry's face. "No-one knows what happened in that graveyard! No-one! You could have left my beautiful son to stand alone! _And Rufus says that now you won't help?"_

Diggory's wife pulled him off and led him away.

"Well, no-one knows!" Mr. Diggory could still be heard roaring. "No-one knows! We've only got his word for anything!"

Aghast, Harry instinctively refused to look about in case anyone was staring at him. He pushed blindly on in any direction. He felt baking hot and scarlet faced. Nobody believed that, did they? Abandon Cedric? _It wasn't true!_

The noise was battering him, his blood was thumping in his ears – he stumbled to a corner of the tent and tried to collect himself, but he simply reeled from gossiping group to gossiping group, then spending some minutes bending over a chair-back in a quiet corner, trying not to be sick.

In the distance he saw George Weasley and his girlfriend rowing furiously - wasn't that the same girl who'd gone off arm in arm with Dashwood? Her lipstick was now looking rather smudged …

Tugging at his collar for air, Harry lurched into the crowd again and staggered against the ice-dragon, part-stumbling around it. He lurched for cover when glimpsing Ginny Weasley and some 'friends'. Ron and Hermione were there too – as was Dashwood, of all people.

Dashwood was watching Ginny, a fact which Ginny seemed annoyed at. Harry found himself registering with a bitter snort that Dashwood probably wasn't famous enough for her!

He saw that she was clutching a large array of flowers and realised she had caught the bouquet. Oh just bloody great! Just what he needed! She'd probably elbowed aside fifty other girls to get it – and then ridden her broom into anyone left over!

_The next to be married? Well, not to him, she wouldn't be!_

Hermione and Ron were rowing - again.

"Oh for heavens' sake Ron, _of course_ they're not!"

"And I'm telling you they are!"

"Ron, Vampires are not evil! Vampires are an oppressed minority suffering from a medical complaint!"

"Oh sure!" Ron rowed at her. "It's an 'oppressed minority' if they've got two legs, but if they've got four they're not an oppressed minority, they're not centaurs, they're _horses!"_

Dashwood – staring at Ginny and only half-listening - did a double-take and threw his head back, howling with laughter at Hermione's revealed hypocrisy. Hermione swiveled toward him, went red and then bit out at him, "And will you _stop_ looking down my dress!" she screeched. "I'm sick of being gawped at! I do have rights, you know! I have a perfect right to dress as I wish without being goggled at by all and sundry!"

Harry cringed. When Hermione got that tone on, there was no dealing with her.

Dashwood's face curled up in an expression of bored disbelief. "Oh for the love of God, no-one's looking down your dress, Granger. You just feel uncomfortable at wearing something with a neckline _one whole inch_ lower than you've ever worn before. Well instead of lashing out at everyone else, just pull your stoll up a bit tighter!"

Hermione looked outraged, opened her mouth as though to say something crushing, but then dragged her shawl around her in a very flustered fashion.

Ron was clearly caught between being narked at Dashwood for having a go at his girlfriend and admiring of the fact someone had actually succeeded in shutting Hermione up.

Harry had managed to step back out of the firing-line before anyone could see him. He wanted to wait so he could nab Ron and Hermione alone. After a few seconds he could hear Ginny speaking. "Have you seen Colin Creevey here? I have – Mum invited him because she felt sorry about his mum and dad. Honestly, he's trying to grow a moustache! Probably thinks it'll make him seem more grown-up but it looks more like mouse-whiskers! In fact, mouse? – it makes him look more like a baby rat!"

Harry got the distinct impression that Ginny was rattling on because, if she was the centre of attention, she felt forced to give people something to look at.

"I heard Crabbe and Goyle failed their re-takes," she babbled. "God, Crabbe and Goyle are weird. Sometimes I think of them as Grabb and Coyle."

"Well, har dee har har."

That was Francis Dashwood.

Ginny rounded, shrewish.

"I know what you're up to, you know!" she accused, "I know what your plan is!" Harry glimpsed Dashwood's face, it went completely still. "Yes, clever clogs," Ginny was shrill and snorting now, "I can tell when someone fancies me, so just cut it out!"

Dashwood blinked, but Ron blurted with laughter. "Are you kidding? Any fella standing within ten feet of you _must_ fancy you?"

Harry saw Ginny shoot Ron an outraged look which said that instead of laughing over Dashwood he should take him outside and horsewhip him!

"Didn't Harry use the Sectumsempra on Draco Malfoy?" interjected one of Ginny's coterie. "That was pretty cool magic!"

"That was a bloody disgrace!" snapped Dashwood.

"What else did you expect him to do?" spat Ginny, "he was being attacked -"

Ron craned over everyone's head.

"Isn't that Neville and Luna leaving?"

Harry reeled about – _Luna!_ Oh hell, she was _leaving!_ She was with a man who Harry thought was her dad, an old lady in a big hat and a lad about Harry's age – oh bugger, it was Granny Longbottom and _Neville! _Luna was leaving with _Neville?_ And she was leaving without saying goodbye? But they'd rowed! She thought he was going back to school, but this could be his last –

"_Harry!"_

He swiveled; Hermione had seen him. Harry swiveled back, he could still catch Neville and Luna if he shouted –

Hermione caught him by his raised arm and he toppled, swinging round on one foot …

"- and I'm telling you that Harry was right to do it!" Ginny shrieked at a blinking Dashwood. "Malfoy had it coming! It was a good job Harry knew that spell, because -"

Harry had put up with enough.

"It wasn't a good job," he roared. "_I nearly sliced Malfoy in two and had him bleed to death on a stinking, piss-covered, bathroom floor! WHAT'S SO BLOODY GREAT ABOUT ME DOING THAT?"_

Harry's wrath silenced the small group.

"But – but it wasn't you, Harry," Ginny's answer was quavering, anxious, "– I - it … it was the spell, Harry, not you."

"I chose to use it!" he shouted. "It was my choice! I could have killed him – _do you think it was a 'good thing' I nearly became a murderer!?"_

The stunned group looked from Harry to Ginny and back again. Dashwood looked momentarily astonished. Ginny looked as though she might crumple but instead she bridled, "Well Malfoy's practically a killer anyway! Everyone knows that!"

She had raised her voice in an effort to match Harry – fight fire with fire – but in response he simply raised his game and flattened her.

"Everyone knows _what!?"_ he roared. "You don't know anything! You couldn't even get an Acceptable in Divination, and all you had to do for that was _make stuff up!"_

Harry turned on his heel and shoved through the huge, indifferent, roaring crowd. He skirted Mr. Weasley who was deep in conversation on his favourite topic: Muggle technology … "_Yes, 'clowning' they call it – jenny-technical engineering. Of course, that level of tampering usually blows up in their faces …"_

He saw Scrimgeour across the tent, who recognised him. The Minister beckoned him but Harry dived away, back into obscurity. It crossed Harry's mind for the briefest of seconds that the Minister might have actually really come to the Reception solely to have one of his 'talks' with Harry.

"_Harry?"_

An excited and star-struck Colin Creevey popped up in front of him.

"Oh, not _now_ Colin!"

Cross, he evaded a hurt and disappointed-looking Colin and wriggled over to a far corner, stepped behind a pot-plant, pulled up a chair, took an unopened bottle of Butterbeer from a nearby table, snapped the top off and started chugging: he'd had enough. He'd heard unsettling things, Scrimgeour was snuffling about, and Luna Lovegood had run off with Neville! How ludicrous!

As he watched sourly, the Reception stopped being a Reception and became increasingly rowdy. The sound of glasses getting smashed was an increasing punctuation to the dull, roaring noise.

Bill and his mates were doing some kind of Cossack-type dance, waving cloths and kicking their legs up as Fleur squealed and clapped. Across the other side of the marquee, Mrs. Weasley, now a bit red in the face with her hat askew, was roaring into the ear of a Ministry wizard she had buttonholed, "_I told Arthur not to get sidetracked by all the Muggle rubbish! We had the Minister here, you know? Did you meet him? He's just left!"_

Harry was at least relieved at that.

Far off, a teenaged girl had gotten up on a table-top and was waving her hands in the air, rhythmically dancing to the latest fast song by the _Drop Deads_ that was playing on a portable wizard radio. George Weasley was still rowing furiously with Evadne Fawcett._ "Oh shove off George! So what if I snogged him? Why shouldn't I have some fun? You're not interested in me! I don't know why you even go out with me! It's like you just picked me because I was convenient!" _Two Ministry wizards were braying at each other … _"Oh we'll definitely catch the Malfoy boy, don't you worry about that! As soon as he shows that distinctive face of his, we'll have him!" _

Harry spotted Dashwood who was looking curious about something despite himself and was talking to a bespectacled Ministry wizard. _'You said you were from the Muggle Relations Department, didn't you? Tell me then, what on earth was Bletchley Park …?' _

In another part of the crowd, a tipsy-looking Mrs. Weasley was now talking in a loud voice to Mr. Weasley, "_I want to know what's going on, Arthur! I want to know what he means by it! What are his intentions?"_

A slightly drunk Rita Skeeter was speaking very bitterly about someone … "_She's a pompous little madam who thinks she can boss everyone around – Little Miss Perfect!"… _Colin Creevey was talking to a tall man who was paying a lot of attention. Fred's girlfriend – Tanit – was there too. Harry thought he heard a passerby nodding to the man, "_Mr. Cuffe …"_ Dashwood was now amidst a gaggle Ministry men discussing family and friends. _"Your father left the potions-debentures game, didn't he Dashwood? What's Jeremiah in now?"_

"_Jail."_

There was a gale of laughter and Francis Dashwood bent down to casually free Crookshanks of his absurd bow - Crookshanks looking askance at him but deciding to let him. Dashwood looked at his watch and hailed Charlie Weasley -_ "I haven't got long left and I really need a slash! There's a terrible queue for the portal-loos, any suggestions?" … "Oh just use the family bathroom. It's off the landing on the second floor in The Burrow. And no rifling through the potions cabinet looking for embarrassing unguents!" … "Wouldn't dream of it,_ _much more likely to go rooting through the linen basket looking for embarrassing underwear!" _

Away at a distance Harry could see two red-headed figures engaged in a lot of angry arm-waving: Ginny and her elder brother Percy. As he watched, Percy turned and stormed out. Harry followed his bobbing, vivid head as he left.

Ron dumped himself down in a chair next to Harry and craned to watch the girl on the table-top dancing to the_ Drop Deads_. "Just think of the fortune Malfoy could make suing the _Deads_, if only he could come out of hiding!"

Harry snorted with sudden laughter, spraying his drink. He abruptly felt a lot better.

Both boys settled in their chairs, watching the deafening crowd as though it were a theatre show. Hermione appeared and squeezed a seat between them; she turned resolutely to Harry. "Harry, you've really upset Ginny! Snapping at her like that!"

Over her shoulder, Harry saw Ron wince apologetically, mouthing _'sorry mate'_.

Hermione pressed on, trying to out-shout the crowd. "Harry, I know you're stressed, but Ginny could be such a help to you!" Harry fought the urge to tell Hermione to mind her own business. "She's a good witch, Harry. Powerful!"

"What?" Ron leapt in. "How d'you figure that one? She's powerful? What's she going to do – Bat Bogey the bad-guys to a standstill? Fly her broom into them?"

Hermione turned on him, "Well she made Harry happy! She could be a great source of comfort to him!"

"A great source of _comfort?"_ choked out Ron, who knew what Harry really felt."And will you stop talking about Harry as though he's some kind of," Ron felt for his words, "some kind of - happiness _invalid!"_

"Well he isn't exactly the most even-tempered person, is he!"

"_What?"_ Harry he was sick of it all. Luna saying he had a bad temper and now - "Oh let's just get it out in the open, shall we? I've only got a bad temper, Hermione, when I don't agree with you!" Hermione looked as though she was exploding to say something. Harry forestalled her. "And do not go on about how I don't listen to you! And anyway, some of the time you're wrong!"

"Like _when?"_ she screeched, disbelieving.

"How about that time with the Centaurs?" he hit back. "That was a good one! You nearly got us both killed!"

Hermione's mouth opened and closed, completely stunned, and then she found her voice, "Well at least I came up with a plan in Umbridge's office! Unlike you who just stood there to get nobly Crucio'd! There's nothing splendid about stupidity, you know!"

"Your plan just took us from one peril to another!"

"So? You can talk! _At the -!" _She bit her words short.

"Hermione, you're a smart person who sometimes behaves really stupidly!" Harry snapped.

"Oh, that does it!" Hermione brought her face very close to Harry and Ron. "We're getting things out in the open are we? Well, let's all admit it, this is all about that Death Eater! This is all about that R.A.B. thing, isn't it?"

Harry and Ron looked at each other, incredulous – how could she have jumped onto that?

"It is not!" snapped Harry, "And anyway, even if it was," he lowered his voice too, "– even if there were some reformed Death Eaters, how's it going to help us?"

"_Oh for heaven's sake, isn't it obvious?"_ she hissed, looking from one boy to the other. She closed her eyes, seemed to screw up all her nerve,_ "SNAPE!"_ Both boys looked at her, astounded. She clarified, "Well, he may still be on our side!"

After ten seconds of sheer disbelief, both Harry and Ron turned on her in astonished disgust. "Oh pull yourself together, Hermione!" Harry spat. "When he was at school, Snape even christened himself 'Half-Blood Prince' to curry favour with Voldemort!"

"How on earth did you arrive at that?" Hermione shrieked, obviously nervous but not backing down. She controlled herself sufficiently to lower her voice, "Why on earth would a nascent Death Eater pick a nick-name that blazoned his 'impure' status and then write it on the outside of his school text-book? That is absurd!" At that, Harry almost spat with wrath. "Oh stop pulling faces!" Hermione rebuked. "You've got to accept it - the best explanation for a lot of things around Snape is that he's still one of us!" Harry and Ron tried to talk over her but she kept going. "After the tower he just runs off the grounds! He doesn't even go for the still-unguarded vanishing cabinet - _because he did not know about it! _He just pelts for the door and the others just follow him! Why was he just sitting in his room when the attack started if he was in on it? Why didn't the Death Eaters tell Snape? The most obvious answer is that they were unsure of his loyalty! _We have to find out!"_

"_Snape murdered Dumbledore!" _Harry hissed

"Snape _saved_ Dumbledore from the burned hand!" pleaded Hermione. "Why did Snape save him if he was only going to kill him later – he just could have let him die then. It wouldn't have even looked like murder. All he had to do was 'fail' to halt the death-spell on the hand – nothing could have been easier!"

"Stop trying to look for reasons to defend him!"

"The locket poison! Professor Dumbledore tried to get to Snape! Why did he trust Snape?"

"He didn't trust him! He didn't tell him about the you-know-whats!"

"How could he? Snape was continually within the coils of the enemy. If he cracked, You Know Who would know everything. The only chance to kill him, gone!"

Harry felt a blast of sheer frustration. Why was Hermione always arguing? Why was she always raising difficult points? Just for once, why couldn't she just shut up and go with the majority-view?

"I'm right!" she cried. "I've thought it all through. It's only logical!"

Harry lurched to his feet, looming over her, shouting. "_I was there! I was on the tower! I saw it, not you!_ _HE KILLED HIM!"_

For a second he thought he had halted her, but then -

"_STOP SHOUTING AT ME!_" Hermione's roar was so loud that Harry toppled back into his seat. She shot up and reared over him, "STOP IT! I won't live in fear of you shouting me down! _I won't let you treat me as you did in the fifth-year! I won't go back to walking on eggshells and living in fear of your temper, you …" _She was so angry that her face was screwed up and her fists were balled, her now increasingly frizzy hair hanging in her face, _"You YOB! You were vile all that year because of Cedric's death! I won't put up with your bad temper because you're upset over Dumbledore!"_

Harry and Ron were both astonished. Walking on eggshells? Living in fear? But if she … Harry couldn't think why she was saying this now. If she felt like this, why hadn't she done anything about it all last year? "Hermione … there was no need to live in fear, not of me."

"You weren't exactly the nicest person to be around Harry."

"But – but I didn't get hysterical over Sirius death," - at that, Hermione's gaze flicked away but Harry continued, refusing to be put off - "I didn't go raving over Sirius' death." He reached a hand out to her, trying to catch her attention, "Hermione, I won't get hysterical over Dumbledore's death."

Hermione shrugged him off and stared determinedly away, her mouth an increasingly set line, "I agree," she said, "I don't think you will get hysterical over Dumbledore's death." Then she got up and left.

Harry and Ron looked at each other, dumbfounded. They saw people staring at them. "Teenagers," roared one man to another, "they have some drinks and they get a bit rambunctious!"

Harry jerked his head in the direction of the exit, "Let's go."

He and Ron struggled toward the gateway, the Reception had long since ceased to be fun for either of them. As they buffeted their way across the tent, Harry saw Hermione talking very sternly to Dobby – probably lecturing him on Elf Rights. Dobby disappeared, probably relieved to get away. As they moved on, Harry glanced back to catch Hermione now addressing Ginny; they appeared to be rowing furiously, he couldn't avoid catching a few of Ginny's words …_ "Oh just LEAVE it! He doesn't want to, it's OBVIOUS!" _

"When do you want to break the news about you and Ginny?" shouted Ron. "Tonight," yelled Harry, "after Bill and Fleur have gone. After that, as soon as you like. Let's just get the whole mess out. At least then, everyone will know where they stand."

They almost made it. They were actually near the security-arch but then – _"Oh, ho!"_ Each boy's spirits sank at the avuncular presence of the Hogwarts ex-Potions and current D.A.D.A. Master. They were caught up in the pudgy, slightly moist-handed grip of Horace Slughorn.

Slughorn was here? – well of course. He'd got an invite from his new friend 'Molly' and he wouldn't be able to resist a social event such as this.

He caught Harry and Ron, somehow managing to stand between them, one arm about each boy's shoulder, somehow presenting a picture of the three of them as friends. _"Ginny! Hermione!"_ He beckoned the two girls to him, "We want a photo of the four Hogwarts friends! The famous quartet! And then," he added with a twinkle, "possibly one of the four of you with your old Professor, eh?"

The _Daily Prophet_ photography team appeared out of nowhere – Harry had the sharp suspicion they had been set-up.

He slumped, okay, one photo wouldn't kill him, one last prance for the press and he could get out. How much worse could things get? He caught Ron's expression: Ron didn't like it any more than he did. Hermione and Ginny each looked similarly sour. This was not going to be the sunniest photograph ever taken. "Drinks!" called Slughorn, summoning an elf. "Elf-wine! Come on everyone, cheer up, make a toast to friendship!"

Mrs. Weasley raced up, panting, her glance flickering between Ginny and Harry, "What's going on?"

There was a kafuffle with the drinks tray, one of the drinks got spilled and a new one had to be poured. Gabrielle skipped up, peering into the drinks, "Can I have one?" Mrs. Weasley made a hissing noise, "Of course you can't! It's elf-wine! You're too young!" Hermione was flapping about with her handbag. Ginny was glaring away into a corner, exuding anger. There was one final handing round of drinks: Gabrielle, laughing, was the one who passed Harry his. A bored-looking Auror waved his Secrecy Detector over them.

It went off.

Everything screeched to a halt. Aurors immediately stepped up, attention focused on Harry's glass. Harry looked around, disbelieving; Ron looked as blankly surprised as he did. One of the Aurors pointed a more finely calibrated Detector at Harry's drink and then looked up at his colleagues, "Love potion."

Gabrielle was immediately accused by a screeching Mrs. Weasley, "You silly little girl! What did you think you were doing, playing with things like that?" Gabrielle started to cry, saying she hadn't done anything. Alerted, Bill and Fleur stepped up. There was accusation and recrimination from Mrs. Weasley. "Go on, ruin the day! Smear our reputation!" The Aurors circled in on Gabrielle, one of them caught the little girl by the arm. Bill grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her back. "'Ow dare you!" shrieked Fleur at the Auror, slapping at him. Bill's mates stepped up from nowhere, looking very tough and starting to stare the Aurors down – what was the betting that the Cursebreakers were wanded-up no matter what the rules? Moody stumped up, looking like a battered, grizzled old lion, but with one last good fight in him.

Sides were being taken.

The marquee was falling silent, heads were craning, faces were puzzled. "If it's not her, then I'd like to know who it could be!" shrieked Mrs. Weasley. "She's got a crush on Harry – it's obvious! Who else would have the motive, eh?"

Harry felt an inexplicable chill descend upon him. He turned slowly to Ginny. She was standing silently, her face very still, her eyes very large; her expression reminded Harry of that time in second-year, when she had wanted to confess a guilty secret about the diary but couldn't bring herself to … He was dumbstruck. She – she _hadn't …?_

Hermione held her hand up almost meekly, "It was me."

"Oh don't be so silly," snapped Mrs. Weasley, "stop trying to take the blame for her!"

"But I did it!"

What? - Harry stared at her.

"I _did_ do it!" cried Hermione, "I put the potion in his glass. Leave Gabrielle alone! It wasn't her, it was me!"

The group stilled and looked at her – it was obvious she was telling the truth. Harry felt his head begin to swim. Hermione? Love potions? Dosing him?

"_What?" _Ron was horrified, "You wanted _Harry_, I was just a _front_?"

"No! No, don't think that! No Ron! I – I," she looked around wildly, as though looking for support. "I did it – I did it," she sounded almost pleading, "I did it for _Ginny._" Harry turned back to Ginny. She was pale. She was taking an instinctive steps backwards, away from everyone around her.

"She's lying!" cried Ginny desperately. Her gaze was darting to and fro. She looked like a woodland animal about to burrow or bolt. "She's just had too much to drink! She's lying! That's all!"

A Ministry security Leglimens gazed at Hermione and then gazed deeply into Ginny, "She isn't lying," he said of Hermione, "but you are."

The whole tent turned as one and stared at the youngest Weasley.


	10. Chapter 10

Title: (Chapter 10)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 

**Chapter 10**

The Reception was in chaos at the revelation. People were leaving, unable to get away fast enough from the now socially-embarrassing Weasleys: there was an actual log-jam at the security arch. It was as though in the space of five minutes the Weasleys had become somehow contagious. Harry was not surprised to see that Slughorn had been amongst the first to scarper.

In contrast, the round-eyed Colin Creevey had to be almost forcibly extracted.

Dashwood, having earlier returned from using the bathroom at The Burrow, had gawped in astonishment at Hermione. He had been making to leave when an Auror touched him on the arm and Dashwood almost jumped, _"What do you want?"_

The Auror's reply had been almost a murmur, "We're just looking for reliable members of the Ministry to remain in the vicinity, Mr. Dashwood."

"But I'm on a schedule!"

"We do need persons particularly loyal to the Minister, Sir. There may be some small, local difficulty …"

Dashwood had looked exasperated, but had little choice but to hang about in the lane near The Burrow.

Harry imagined there would be quite a little detachment building up nearby, hoping to take some advantage of the situation.

Charlie Weasley had ushered members of the Order over to The Burrow where they were Disapparating, and the wedding party was rapidly dwindling to close-family only. Fleur's tiara was given back to the Weasley's ancient Aunt Muriel – with Fleur muttering only after Aunt Muriel had gone that 'tiara's are bad luck'.

In the commotion, Professor McGonagall had approached Harry and said that, upon Dumbledore's death, the 'Secret' of the location of the Order headquarters had 'died with him'. Harry had simply stared at her. He could remember Grimmauld Place perfectly well. She had then pressed him to tell the Order about the house he had in London, 12 Grimmauld Place, to hand it over for a secret-kept headquarters.

Before he'd known it, Harry had rounded on her. "Why should I give it to you? What do I know about you anyway? _I don't know anything about you!"_

Professor McGonagall had stepped back, shocked; even Ron had looked startled – shouting at Professor_ McGonagall? _Seeing Ron's expression, Harry had felt momentarily shamed but then realised … Hermione had let him down so badly, she had just tried to potion him to try and keep him fancying Ginny Weasley. Why wouldn't someone else let him down? Why shouldn't everyone else? Who could he trust now apart from Ron? Even the Order … who were they really? He didn't even know most of their names! And McGonagall wanted him to hand over a safe place, just like that? Just expecting him to do it like a good little boy? She was no better than Scrimgeour who just wanted to use him as some mascot or front-man!

He stepped back from Professor McGonagall, from Mrs. Weasley, even from Arthur Weasley, watching them all, weighing them up. The Order had nearly all been killed the first time round. They had been losing right up until that night at Godric's Hollow. And now they'd lost Dumbledore too? They were just a bunch of old farts who'd not been able to hack it when they'd been fifteen years younger! What use were they now? It said everything about them that even Molly Weasley was a member: a witch too weak even to dispel a Boggart!

And there had definitely been at least two spies in the Order – Pettigrew and then Snape – who knew that there wouldn't be more!

A determined Harry had point-blank refused to hand over the address and a shocked Professor McGonagall had been ushered out. 

The last of the general crowd to leave was Moody. Loath to 'desert his post', he had given Harry a disapproving look before he stumped off. There was only a Ministry-Security crew left now, and Moody look hard at them over his shoulder as he went, remarking that he'd be nearby if called. He left, muttering about 'idiot girls …'.

The tent had cleared and now it was left to just family and the Ministry-Security crew.

Things were so strange … in the quiet, Harry felt as though he were now viewing events through a pane of glass.

In the silence, he thought he could hear Crookshanks purring somewhere in the tent …

"How did you get the potion into the Reception?" demanded an Auror of Hermione.

"I ordered – "

"Never mind how she got it in, what are you lot still doing here?" That was Mr. Weasley to the Aurors.

"It's a Ministry matter, it's -"

"It's a private matter," interrupted Mr. Weasley, "so I would like you to leave."

"There's been use of love potion!"

"Which is not illegal, so you may go."

"But that girl …" the Aurors indicated Hermione.

" - is not at Hogwarts," interjected Bill. "Love potion use is banned at Hogwarts, but it's legal anywhere else. She only used it here. It's just a one-off occasion, nothing more. So what if she was a bit out of order, it wasn't illegal – so get out." He suddenly sounded angry, "Go on, shove off. I've had enough of you lot hanging around our wedding, gagging to arrest someone. Now get on your brooms and go." Bill looked very forbidding, he was standing protectively in front of the young Gabrielle. The Aurors shuffled slightly, but didn't actually leave …

"I am part-Veela, you know," slid Fleur, eyeing the Aurors with a menacingly serene smile, "anyone want to see me start throwing zee fist-fuls of fire? I am sure I can manage eet …" The Aurors hurriedly left. The tent now seemed entirely empty apart from Harry, Hermione and the remaining family.

"'Ow dare you accuse my sister!" screeched Fleur, immediately rounding on Mrs. Weasley now it was just 'family'. Bill rested a cautioning hand on Fleur's shoulder but it did not silence her, "Well, she did!" Fleur snapped, still glaring. She rounded on Ginny, "And as to you - you are just a coward and a liar! You would let a leetle girl take the blame for what you did?"

"I – I _never!"_ squealed Ginny. "I just said that Hermione was drunk! That's all!"

"You called 'er a liar when she spoke up for Gabi! She was prepared to admit what she had done, but you were not!"

"I am not a coward!" shrieked Ginny. "Hermione wanted to confess what _she_ had done – I didn't see any reason for her to drag me down with her!"

"Oh give over," Ron snarled at Ginny, "you did what you always do when you get caught – you try to lie your way out of it, and if that doesn't work, you start crying!"

"I am not a coward! And anyway, what's so special about you, _Ronniekins_? What makes you so brave! There was no reason for both me and Hermione to go down! Besides, _she_ did it!" Ginny flung an arm wildly in the direction of Hermione, "I was just there! _I didn't ask her to do it!_ _I didn't know!"_

Harry dispassionately calculated … that wasn't true. She had known, the two girls had been rowing just before … _"Oh just LEAVE it! He doesn't want to, it's OBVIOUS!" _He was sure now that they had been rowing about dosing him. Ginny had known.

"Oh shut your face!" snapped Ron at his sister. He mimicked her voice, "I didn't know. I'm Mummy's Little Princess …"

"Ron!" snapped Mrs. Weasley. Ron looked mutinous but fell silent. Bill cleared his throat and turned to his father, "Look Dad, we'll cancel the Honeymoon and stick around for the family," Fleur looked unhappy at that, but did not publicly contradict him.

"Oh Bill, thank you!" wailed Mrs. Weasley, "I was hoping you'd offer! It's such a comfort to have all the boys rally round at a time like this and -"

Arthur Weasley put his hand up, halting her. "Bill, thanks for the offer but there's no need for you and Fleur to get dragged into this and," he give a very firm look to Mrs. Weasley, "_we _don't want you to be." He looked back to Bill, "This isn't your mess. You have _your_ family now," he indicated Fleur, "and that's where your responsibilities lie. Now you go on your Honeymoon just as you'd planned. I won't have the start of your married life ruined by a silly little thing like this. It'll all blow over – when you get back it'll be old news. This was a one-off incident. It'll just be a one-week wonder and then it'll all be forgotten."

Everyone was quietly stunned – Arthur Weasley was standing up to Molly Weasley? Arthur gave another very hard look and Molly Weasley's mouth tightened but she said nothing. Arthur moved to the conciliated Fleur and kissed her on the forehead. "Have a lovely time my dear, I'm just so sorry the day ended as it did." After a few strained farewells, Bill and Fleur, plus Gabrielle, left The Burrow by Floo, with Gabrielle taken back to Paris from where Bill and Fleur would travel on. They had intended to change out of their wedding clothes before traveling and take a leisurely departure, but such were events that Fleur simply wanted to leave as soon as possible. The three simply took their bags and went, making a very glamorous Floo-party with all still in their wedding outfits.

In the tent though, things remained very fraught. Mrs. Weasley was extremely on edge. "I knew it wouldn't last, I knew Harry was going to desert Ginny -"

"_Desert_ her?" yelped Ron, "you're making it sound as though she's been left barefoot and pregnant -"

"She's _what?"_ screeched Molly.

"I am _not!"_ yowled Ginny.

"– dressed in rags," continued Ron, ignoring the interruptions, "and traipsing the streets of London looking for a doorway to sleep in! He went out with her for _three weeks!_ There was a bit teenaged snogging, that's all! You might as well say I 'deserted' Lavender Brown!"

"A bit of _snogging?"_ barked Mrs. Weasley, "I think we can call it a lot more than that! I've read the papers! I hear the gossip!_"_

"Oh pull yourself together, Mum!" snapped Ron. "There was 'gossip' about Ginny and half the boy's in Hogwarts!"

"Will you stop making me sound like some slag!" screamed Ginny. "At least I'm not like that pathetic cow Pansy Parkinson – she let Malfoy do it to her so she could keep him! As if he was even _worth _it, that skinny, staring, creep! Like you couldn't tell what _he_ wanted!"

A detached part of Harry felt dully surprised. Was Ginny Weasley implying that Draco Malfoy somehow fancied her? _Malfoy?_ How absurd! Malfoy didn't even _know_ her. Harry knew for a fact that Malfoy had only spoken to Ginny Weasley twice: once at the bookshop in second-year when he'd spotted that Ginny Weasley fancied Harry, and once when he'd yelled at her when she'd made a fool of herself with that ludicrous Valentine card.

Malfoy had been really livid over that card thing …

"What?" snapped Ron. "Are you trying to say that Malfoy fancied _you?_ Give over! He was getting his off that blond piece, Pansy Parkinson. He wouldn't be interested in your short-legged, stumpy little arse!"

Mrs. Weasley was caught up in her own theme. "Harry got Ginny's name smeared all over the press and then he couldn't be bothered with her!" she screamed. "Don't you think I haven't noticed how he hasn't wanted to be anywhere near my daughter since he arrived at The Burrow? Now she's just going to be the ex-girlfriend and be humiliated! No wonder there's was a bit of jiggery-pokery with love potion! – it was the only way to stave off the humiliation!"

"Harry didn't put Ginny in the press," roared Ron. "She was the one parading up and down Diagon Alley. She was the one twirling for the photographers and wearing all her nice new clothes! Blame her if you're going to blame anyone!"

"He was doing – he's been -_"_ Mrs. Weasley was almost choking on her words.

"Mum, will you _shut up!"_ screamed Ginny. "You're making things worse! Just shut your mouth and we can still all get out of this!" She turned to Hermione, "Because _it only happened once _– and that once was tonight!"

But Mrs. Weasley would not be assuaged, "You had a good reputation and now you've lost it! You're _soiled goods!"_

"I've had three boyfriends and I could have had a lot more – but all I've ever done is a bit of snogging!" screamed Ginny. "How's that, 'soiled'?"

Harry felt the pane of glass which seemed to separate him from the rest of the scene begin to crack.

"I won't have it!" cried Mrs. Weasley. "I want the Aurors back! I want to get to the bottom of this! I want Ginny, Harry and Hermione Leglimensed! I want to find out what happened to my daughter!"

Ginny shook her head, frenzied. "Shut up Mum! You don't know what you're asking! We don't want the Aurors back – we don't want the Leglimens involved!"

"Why not? What else is there to hide? You are under-age! What were you doing with Harry Potter? If you've done nothing, it'll help clear your reputation! Why shouldn't we get the Aurors back?"

"Because -" the room turned to Hermione, caught by her bleating tone, "because I was love potioning him to go out with Ginny last year too." There was a stunned silence. Ron turned to gawp at her. "Well love potions aren't dangerous!" she cried, "Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes sell them all the time!" The Twins exchanged looks. "He and Ginny were made for each other!" Hermione wailed. "She was absolutely ideal for him, anyone could see that!"

The pane of glass shattered.

"Are you kidding me?" Despite his ever-growing anger, Harry felt oddly cool. "You're admitting that you were potioning me last year, to get me to go out with Ron's sister?" The room stared at Harry, his voice sounded so controlled, it was unsettling, even Molly Weasley was silenced.

"Well – I," Hermione faltered, "you and she, you were so suited …"

"So, you thought you'd just," Harry wondered, what was that phrase she had fired at him more than once last school year? – "tweak the circumstances?" His voice was still frighteningly contained, chillingly conversational.

"Harry," Hermione's voice held a pleading note, "please – please don't be so cold about it."

"Why not, Hermione? Don't you want me to be nice and calm?" Hermione's gaze flicked away from him. "So you thought you'd arrange my life for me, did you?" he continued, "You knew best? A bit like how you'd arrange for me to do my homework? A bit like how 'you knew best' over S.P.E.W.?"

"But the two of you … she was popular, she was good at Quidditch."

"But then why didn't you have me date Malfoy? He's good at Quidditch and very popular too - among certain Slytherin ladies."

"But Harry, I thought you liked her – all you needed was a little push."

"I _liked_ her?" Harry was sick of hearing about 'liked', his voice began to heat up. "How could you think that? Apart from the fact that she's Ron's sister, I hardly knew her!"

"But you spoke to her," Hermione still had that pleading tone.

"I speak to _Neville_, what are you going to do, stick a skirt on him, potion me up and point me at him?"

"Harry," interrupted Mr. Weasley, "we're not going to get to the bottom of this by getting angry." He turned to Hermione, "When did you potion Harry?"

"I - at The Burrow, at the end of last Summer, when Harry first got here."

A ripple of puzzlement ran around the room – how had she managed that? For some reason, Arthur seemed relieved. "Do you mean you bought some Wonder Witch potions?" he asked.

"No, it wasn't one of those," – a slump of relief emanated from Fred and George – "it was before then. I tried to make my own - but it didn't work!" Her now stuttering voice had a desperate, hopeful edge to it, as though 'it didn't work' might somehow absolve her of the fact that she had tried at all.

Oddly, Harry found himself coolly reflecting that you could practically _see_ her hair breaking free of the artificial perfection of the Sleakeazy.

"Honestly! It didn't have any effect!" she cried. "I tried it on Harry during his very first night here last summer. Harry was just the same afterwards as he was before!"

"It was that sweet, wasn't it? The one stuck under my pillow?" Harry had his arms folded and his chin dipped, it was almost as though he was glaring up at Hermione even though he was much taller than she. His voice sounded very clipped. He recalled that far-off morning: waking up with something like a hang-over from a deep but unsatisfying night's sleep … or waking up akin to having been drugged.

"What, you made a _Love Sweet?"_ Fred sounded partly disbelieving and partly as though he thought he thought 'Love Sweets' might present a brilliant business opportunity.

Molly Weasley looked at Hermione in outrage – sticking sweets under pillows? Getting her a reputation as a poor housewife?

"And while I'm at it," continued Harry, "was there anything in that vase too, the one with the funny smell?"

Mrs. Weasley gasped, "What," her words spluttered, "– what were you thinking of, Hermione!"

Hermione's face was screwed up in anguish, almost as though she thought she was about to be hit. "I was aiming at love potion, but I must've got it wrong because it turned out as a sort of congealed lump at the bottom of the cauldron. I just charmed it to look like a Puking Pastille and stuffed it under Harry's pillow. See? I told you - _it didn't_ _work_."

"What do you mean 'it didn't work'? I went out with Ron's sister, didn't I?" He remembered all the times he'd groped Ginny Weasley – no wonder he'd done it! He hadn't been himself! He wasn't to blame, not at all! All that self-disgust – he could just drop it! It wasn't his burden! "Does anyone seriously think I'd go out with Ginny Weasley unless I was being tampered with? I ended up – I ended up … I don't even _fancy _her! I never did and I never will!"

Unwillingly, he caught a glimpse of a flinching Ginny.

"Oh come off it Harry," interjected Fred, "you went out with her the best part of a year after Hermione dosed you!"

"But it was the effects of the potion! It must have been! I wouldn't have done it otherwise! She – look, Hermione tried it again just now! Why are we even discussing this?"

"Look Harry, why do you care that you went out with Ginny, potioned or not?" asked George. "It was just a bit of hanky-panky. You were 16, maybe you just fancied a bit and Ginny was there and up for it? She is what we could call a 'popular girl'." He cast a scathing glance at his sister, who hissed, bridling; he ignored her. "There's nothing wrong with fancying a bit, you know. You don't have to be potioned to come over a bit randy."

"_George!"_ exploded Molly.

"Well you _don't_, Mum."

Harry remembered his behaviour with Ginny, the humiliating, the embarrassing … "I was potioned! It wasn't me!"

"Look Harry," Fred leant forward, "maybe you're just remembering it wrong? Hermione only dosed you once, it can't have been the cause of you wanting to go out with Ginny almost a year later. You went out with her because you wanted to. Okay, you might not want to got out with her now, but let's not blow this out of all proportion."

"But Hermione didn't potion him once, did she?" said Arthur. He turned to her, "You said you were 'potion-_ing_' him. That means more than once." He looked at her intently, "How many times did you do it, Hermione?"

Hermione made to answer.

"Hermione, shut up!" interrupted Ginny, hissing.

"But - " Hermione looked at the furious Ginny, "but we _have_ to get it all out now! It's all too late!"

"Who's 'we'? You were the one dosing him! I wasn't doing the dosing! You just told me about it!"

"You mean you _knew?"_ screeched Mrs. Weasley.

"It was just a few more times," wailed Hermione, "at Hogwarts."

"A few _more _…?" Harry was aghast, staring at Hermione.

How many times had it been? 

"But I stopped – I stopped ages ago. So you see, you must've felt something real for her … the potions had no effect! I stopped long before you started going out with her." She sounded frantic to be believed, "I followed all the dosing instructions to the letter -"

"What instructions?" snapped George, "you said you were making your own stuff!"

"No, I was using yours then because mine hadn't worked."

The twins jolted as though they'd been electrocuted.

"Her and every other girl at Hogwarts!" snapped Harry. "Even Ron got hit by one of George and Fred's Wonder Witch brews, one that was aimed at me by _another _girl at school."

"You never told me!" gasped Hermione.

"Why should we?" snapped Harry. "Ron went barmy under the effects. It was an embarrassment for him. Afterward we just kept quiet about it."

"Well - see?" Hermione sounded desperate, "See? Ron went barmy, but you didn't – so you couldn't have been successfully potioned. And besides, other girls were doing it. What I did wasn't that wrong. And none of it worked anyway!"

"_Rubbish!"_ yelled Harry. "Of course it worked! I used to go to sleep at nights on fire for her, on fire for a girl I had never been interested in and who was my best mate's little sister! D'you know how that felt? I used to feel AWFUL! I thought it was like some monster in my chest – like I'd been taken over by something – and now I know why: it was and I had! It was like I'd suddenly gone mad! It was like being under the _Imperius_!"

'But she'd waited for you for _years_!" Hermione wailed. "You weren't even interested in anyone else! You'd fallen apart with Cho, it wasn't as though I was getting in the way of anything! Ginny _deserved_ you! You were meant for each other – _you saved her in the Chamber!"_

"I saved her in the Chamber, so that meant she and I were 'destined' for each other? Are you mad? What was I supposed to do with her stuck there, just leave her there? I saved you from a Troll, I saved Gabrielle in the lake, was I supposed to go out with everyone I've ever saved? You're the one who told me I had a 'saving people thing'!"

There was a stumbling noise from a particularly gloomy corner of the marquee, from behind the very same _Felicis Tactus_ which had hidden Harry earlier. Everyone turned toward it. "Ooops!" giggled a still slightly tipsy Rita Skeeter, tripping out from behind the giant plant, "naughty me! I must have forgotten to leave when I should have!" She had patently been using her Quick Quotes Quill to scribble down everything she had heard.

That purring noise Harry had thought he'd heard hadn't been Crookshanks at all, it had been Rita Skeeter setting the plant off as she'd hidden behind it.

Harry closed his eyes. Great, Rita Skeeter had been listening-in? Just how bad was this going to get?

"Give me those notes!" demanded Hermione, shrilly.

"Why should I, Little Miss Righteous?" Rita's mouth pursed, "Will you spread _lies _about me, Hermione? Try to _blackmail_ me? You can say what you like now, no-one's going to believe you after this!"

"I am not a liar!" shrieked Hermione.

"No," Rita shook her head in mock commiseration as she giggled and hiccupped slightly, "you're just a love potioning deceiver instead, I can see how that's _so_ much better … I can see the headline now … _Hermione Granger: Little Miss Perfect Potions Abuser!_" Rita snorted with triumphant laughter, quoting from her imagined artical, gloating over Hermione's failing, finally getting her chance at revenge for having been blackmailed. "_Harry Potter, betrayed, hurt, lashes out at the person who set him up: Hermione Granger. Muggle-born Granger, plain-faced, ambitious and controlling, felt she knew better than Harry himself … Ginny, a naïve young girl, fell into her clutches …"_

Rita cackled drunkenly and raced for the exit; she escaped before anyone, without their wands, had a hope of stopping her.


	11. Chapter 11

Title: (Chapter 10)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. 

Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Chapter 11**

As Rita disappeared, escaping their grasp, Harry furiously turned toward Hermione. "Did you seriously think you had a right to potion me?" he hissed.

"But -" Hermione was looking as though she hoped she could chase after Rita, but she turned to Harry, half-pleading. "But Ginny liked you for _years_ …"

"I _knew_ that and it used to embarrass me! The only time I didn't mind her was in our fifth-form, when I found out she was going out with another bloke and I finally thought it was safe!"

Out of the corner of his eye Harry inadvertently saw Ginny look up at him, shocked; he ignored her.

"All this is getting out of hand," interjected Fred, "there was no harm done, nobody got hurt, these potions are just toys – we sell them for a joke. We've sold them to lots of people. Harry, just stop blowing it out of all proportion and causing trouble for people!"

"Harry, I stopped _ages_ before you started going out with Ginny," Hermione pleaded. "You must've gone out with her because you wanted to. You _must_ have! How_ else_ could you have? You didn't 'go barmy' like Ron did …"

She carried on talking as Harry caught stray words from George to Ron, _"What about that other girl dosing you …?" … "She tried to slip it to Harry before Christmas but he didn't eat them, I ate them on my birthday." … "So it was brewing in the chocolates for three months? It would have really strengthened over time …" _

"You must have some natural inbuilt resistance," continued Hermione, in a desperate, high tone, "because nothing _happened_. I was _watching_ you and there were _no signs!"_

Harry stared at her, suddenly recalling all the funny looks and little smirking grins she'd given him last year. The thought that she'd been watching him like that simply fanned his anger, he snapped at her, interrupting, "It did work on me! It _must_ have – because I ended up dating _her!"_ He flung an accusing finger in the direction of Ginny. In return, Hermione looked pained, "But only because you must've _wanted_ to!" she wailed. The argument went round and round … _'I dosed you, but nothing happened, so you must've gone out with her because you wanted to'… 'I didn't' … 'You must have' … 'I didn't' … 'You must have' … 'I didn't' …_

"Er … Hermione …" It was George, he went unheard, he drew a full breath and roared, _"HERMIONE!" _The room rushed to silence. "When did you last dose Harry?"

Hermione squirmed at the question; confessing up to details made it all very real. "Well, there was that time in the pub – _The Three Broomsticks_ – but that was when we were at Hogwarts before Christmas, the day Katie got poisoned by Malfoy's necklace …" Harry was aghast, suddenly recalling Hermione offering to get him a drink from the bar, how she'd handed him a particular Butterbeer and how he'd gagged on it _when he'd taken his first sip _…

"Well that settles it," announced Fred, "it was _ages_ before they started going out." He turned to Harry, "You can't blame us or anyone else Harry!"

"… but that wasn't the last time," winced Hermione, "I did it a few other times – but _only_ a few. The last time was when I dosed your pumpkin juice at breakfast, about the time of the start of the Quidditch season and - "

"_What?"_ Harry was angry. "You dosed me then, and all that time you were ranting at me for the fact that I pretended to dose Ron with the Lucky Juice? No wonder you were so on edge about it! You were tense over the possibility of others dosing people because you knew you were doing it yourself!"

"That still doesn't count!" snapped Fred. "Quidditch try-outs are in the Autumn, which was well before you went out with Ginny. _It_ _wasn't_ _a potion, Harry."_

"It was," said George. Fred swiveled to his twin as Harry looked wide eyed at this unexpected source of confirmation. George looked at Hermione, "You followed the instructions to the letter, right?" - she nodded compulsively - "including the ones about not hitting the dosee on the head?"

"Well of course! Everyone knows how serious that is! Ron tapped him on the head that first morning at The Burrow, but it was only a tap, and honestly I was watching Harry really closely for signs that morning, it didn't make any diff -"

"But you were dosing him off and on for months." Hermione cringed at George's words; when someone said it as baldly as that, it really did sound clinical. "So when he got hit on the head," George carried on, "you didn't think that counted?"

"He didn't get hit on the head! When I dosed him, I didn't hit him on the head -"

"So when he was in the infirmary for three days with a CRACKED SCULL," George roared, "that didn't count as being_ 'hit on the head'!?" _

There was a stunned silence from all present.

"But that was long after I -"

"Long after you dosed him last?" George cut off Hermione's attempted defense, "WHO CARES? You'd been administering so much different stuff: yours, ours and whatever else that who knows what was in his system or what the effects were of various things combining! It's like that Golpalott's Law: things combine to be stronger than they are separately. He got smashed unconscious! His scull was split open!" He abruptly turned to Harry, "After that, was that when it really took off with you? Is that when you really got … er, 'interested'?"

"I could barely get my mind off her from then on."

George turned back to Hermione again. "So that's it then, isn't it? He got love potioned, he got smashed on the head and then he fell in _luuuurve_ with our kid sister!" He glared at Hermione. "Yes he was love potioned," he stormed, "_and it was all your fault!"_

Hermione looked around the astonished group, "But Harry liked her - and she really liked Harry."

"She 'really liked' me, so you thought you'd step in and _give _me to her?" Harry's tone was a rising tide of anger. "How would you feel if someone did that to you? Just dosed you up and pointed you at – at -" he cast about for a name, "- at McClaggan!"

Hermione went bright red, it was a few seconds before she could speak. "But it wasn't like that! I didn't even like McLaggan – you liked Ginny! You were getting on so well with her at the end of fifth-year! You began to talk to her -"

"Only after you said she was over me! And that was obviously a lie, wasn't it? You were supposed to be my friend but you lied to me and then you set me up!"

"I – I never lied! I never told you she was 'over you'," Hermione sounded rather desperate, pushing a lock of heavily-frizzing hair out of her face, "I said that she 'gave up' on you, that's not the same thing. She was still pining for you but she thought she had no chance of getting you! If you'd listened carefully you'd have seen that I never actually lied to you!"

"_What! _You 'never actually lied to me'? - instead you just tricked me, but that's okay because tricking people with words instead of 'lying' to them is _clever?"_ Harry could feel his voice growing raw with the effort of not actually shouting. "Do you think it makes you a better person because you can deceive someone _without actually lying? _You didn't actually lie? What difference does that make? _Your intent was to deceive!_ You poisoned me, you deceived me, you set me up and now you're splitting hairs over whether or not you actually, technically _lied?_ Do you think that makes any_ difference_ after what you did? It just makes you a full-of-herself pompous little madam! You made me feel something I didn't! _You used me!"_

"Oh for heaven's sake!" Hermione was starting to become exasperated. "It didn't seem to me that you were too unhappy at being used, I had to practically peel you off her. You weren't exactly struggling to escape her. You were all over her!"

There was a horrible silence, then … "You filthy _LIAR!"_ Harry's roar filled the tent, Hermione stepped backwards. "Why should anyone believe anything you say?" he roared on. "You lied to me, you lied to Ron, you accused us of doing the very thing you were doing yourself! You smug, self-congratulatory - "

"I am not a liar!" Hermione screamed.

"When I think back to the time you warned me that Romilda Vane was planning to dose me. No wonder you knew everything about how Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes smuggled their stuff into the school – you were doing it yourself! And you even lied then!"

"I did _not!"_

"You _did!_ You chanted 'I don't go round putting potions in people's drinks', when you'd been doing just that. Or do sweets don't count because they're not liquid?"

Hermione, blinked, shocked, as though she'd just unexpectedly tripped up over her own shoelaces.

Harry's tone grew much harsher, "You _deceiver!_ Trying to tell me that I did those things with _her _of my own accord – that I wanted - you filthy, filthy, _LIAR!"_

"_Don't call me a liar!"_ Hermione was now shrieking. She suddenly looked as wild as Harry. "Do you want to know how I squared it with myself? Do you want to know the real reason I dosed you? I couldn't have cared less about Ginny! It was because I wasn't prepared to have you going off the deep end again, I wasn't going to take another year like my fifth-form. All fifth-year you were snappish, aggressive, dismissive, no-one was allowed to disagree with you, I couldn't reason with you, and if the only way to ensure that didn't repeat itself was to keep you happy and distracted by getting you interested in a girl, then that was what I was going to do!"

"Do you seriously think that me rowing with you justified you poisoning me?" Harry shouted. "If Ron and I argue, do you think we resolve it by poisoning each other?"

"I had tried every other possible method. I couldn't cope with you any other way!"

"You tried no 'other method'! Stop kidding yourself!" Harry suddenly felt a flaring disgust, not only at what she'd done but also at her sheer self-deception. "The reason you didn't know how to deal with difficulties was because you only know what you read in books - _and they don't have books on how to live life!"_

Hermione looked like she'd been slapped, hard. For a second nothing happened, and then -"How dare you! _How dare you!_ I tried reasoning with you and you weren't listening to me. What else was I supposed to do? No wonder I tried to dose you as soon as I could, I was _justified!"_

"How can you possibly claim you were justified just because you lost a few arguments?" Harry was outraged.

"Because it wasn't about a few arguments!" she shouted. "You can't see it even now, can you? I have to explain _everything_ to you! You were in a raging temper in fifth-year – you were foul after Cedric's death so," she hauled a breath in and then shot her words out, "_what do you think you were going to be like after Sirius' death?"_

Harry felt a crunching blow in his chest, "I – I would have handled it …"

"You?" she screeched, "_how?_ The only reason we all ended up in the Department of Mysteries was because of you! You were rash. You insisted we go. You made us do it. We were all nearly _killed_ there – someone actually flung a Killing Spell at me and the only reason I lived was because they got cut off after the first word! After you'd convinced yourself Sirius was there, you never even considered doing anything other than racing to the Department. We had Umbridge's Floo open, instead of talking to Kreacher you could have gone to wherever Sirius lived, you could have checked that way. You could have gone to The Burrow and from there instantly contacted Order members. You could even have tried to get into the Head's office and asked the paintings for help. You didn't do any of those things because you didn't want to. You wanted to go gung-ho to the Department of Mysteries, arrogantly thinking you could take on whatever Death Eaters were there, when groups of trained adults could not!"

Harry tried to ignore her shouts but felt a dreadful chill because he could add something to the list of things he could have done: _he could have used the Two-way mirror …_

"I was justified in dosing you!" she screeched. "You were lethally rash. I had to throw a distraction your way in sixth-year just to make sure you didn't get us all killed. Do you know why I dosed you that time in _The Three Broomsticks_? Because five minutes earlier you'd been choking the life out of Mundungus – literally. You had him pinned to the wall by the throat. He was turning blue! I asked you to get off him but you wouldn't and in the end someone had to shoot you off him! And you weren't any better later! You _Sectumsempra'd_ Malfoy, you tried to cut him in two -"

"That's not fair!" roared Harry.

"Fair?" she screamed, "you're talking like a child! _'That's not fair!' … _You wouldn't have handled Sirius' death. All that blaming Snape, saying it was his fault Sirius died? – you were just throwing the responsibility for what happened onto someone else!" She heaved in a huge breath, swept away by anger, beyond any circumspection, "You were the reason Sirius was even in the Department. He wouldn't have had to be there in the first place if it wasn't for you. It was your fault he died!" Her voice rose to a scream. "_It was your fault! You killed him, just as you would have gotten us all killed later if I hadn't stepped in! I had to stop you from grieving for Sirius, and I did it by potioning you up and pointing you at the first girl I could think of! I had to do it to save us all!"_

Harry felt as though he'd been clapped about the ears. He rocked back on his heels but Hermione raged on, "You're calling _me_ a liar? – _YOU'VE DONE NOTHING BUT LIE TO YOURSELF!"_

There was a stunned silence in the marquee, it went on for several seconds.

_It was your fault. You killed him …_

Harry thought he might actually pass out. His vision was darkening, his hearing filling with white static. But – no! He wouldn't listen to what Hermione had said – she was wrong, he wasn't going to listen to her. How could she be trusted anyway after what she'd done? And what she'd done – she'd taken it upon herself to put a cap on his mourning for Sirius! She'd stopped him grieving, it was almost as though she had stopped him from paying his respects! He felt a buzzing in his ears akin to Muffliato – the implication that somehow Sirius wasn't worth grieving over -

"_Get out of my sight!"_

"Don't be absurd!" she snorted, _"you need me!"_

"What for? So you can fall over a lot in battles and I have to save you? It may have escaped your notice, but you – and you," he included Ginny in his accusing glare, "– neither of you are much good in a fight!" He snorted at Hermione, "At the Department of Mysteries you treated it like netball practice," - the other wizards looked blank at that - he mimicked her, "_'oh good shot Harry!'_ No wonder you got knocked out, you weren't watching what you were doing!" He turned on Ginny, "And all you've ever done is run around screaming, then get hexed or fall over!" Looking down upon Ginny he realised that he had almost forgotten she was even there – _the story of her life_ …

He recalled her earlier clinginess at the garden gate when he had arrived at The Burrow, her horrified look as he had pushed her away – she had known all along he was being dosed, she had known way before tonight, she had known last year, she had admitted it just earlier. That explained the huge fights and terrible atmosphere between she and Hermione during his stay at The Burrow.

Looking down at Ginny Weasley, he felt as disgusted with her scheming passivity as he had with Hermione's self-deception. "And I suppose you're priding yourself that you're a better person because you didn't actually do the potioning, are you?" he spat at Ginny. "Telling yourself you're not guilty because all you did was hang around and let someone else do the dirty work for you? You knew what she was doing – you just admitted it before - and you didn't stop her! Instead you _took advantage!"_

Looking up at him, Ginny's face seemed to melt under his shouted scorn, he thought she was going to start crying. "Oh don't turn on the waterworks," he snarled, "you're wet enough already!"

There was a terrible, ringing silence and then -

"_Stop talking about me as though I'm some piece of failed meat!"_

Harry blinked at Ginny's scream. Her face had not melted to tears but instead had re-set into something very, very angry.

"_Just who do you think you are!" _she screamed. "Do you know how many years of my life I _wasted_ on you?" Her voice began to crack, "I made myself popular! I got sporty! I went out with boys!" She sounded at the edge of tears now. "I turned myself into the kind of girl you like! And you _still_ ignored me! _Other _boys liked me – I could have had my pick," her voice cracked, "- why couldn't _you _like me_?"_

There was something high and wailing about her now, she sounded like an animal with a paw caught in a snare from which it had never been able to gnaw free.

"I had to do something, you weren't paying attention to me!"

Harry stepped back but she simply stepped forward, grabbing the front of his robes and shaking his lapels. He began to get hot: sheer embarrassment.

"See? You're doing it now! _Pay attention to me! What have I got to do_ _to make you see me?_ Do you know how many words you spoke to me in my second-year – four! - when you snapped at me on the train ride to school, telling me to get off your lap, 'Not here, I'm here!'. And in my third-year you never spoke to me at all! Even when I spoke to you! You knew I was talking to you and just pretended I hadn't spoken! _You never looked at me!" _

Harry felt his face going red and his hair beginning to stand on end as though it might singe with the sudden heat.

"You didn't even _hate _me!" she howled, "you just _ignored me!"_

Harry stared down at her wildly grieving face with a vague horror.

"_You never even remembered I was possessed!"_

Harry felt trapped in a capsule of rising heat. He felt almost paralyzed with shock. How could she be accusing him of all this, why was it his fault? "It isn't my fault that you wasted your time – it was your decision!"

"It _was_ your fault!" she sobbed, still fiercely gripping his robes, still shaking him although it was ineffectual, now crying with sheer anger. "It was your fault because you never told me to stop! You never told me I had no chance! You never _said_ it! You just let me carry on, living on crumbs of hope. You _knew _I wanted you!" Her voice cracked with sobs again. "You admitted it just before, when you said you knew I had wanted you and that it embarrassed you! You _knew_ and you did nothing to help me by telling me to stop!"

Harry wrestled with her wrists, trying to get her off him, "It wasn't my fault!"

"It _was!_ It _was_ your fault!" Ginny was weeping angrily now, voice fracturing. "It was your fault because you didn't have the guts to tell me to stop! I had to carry on for years because you were too gutless to face just two uncomfortable minutes! You _knew_, but you just left me hanging!" The last word dissolved in a series of wails.

Harry finally prized her hands off him and she staggered, weeping, into the arms of her mother. There was a horrible silence. Harry was dreadfully aware that Molly Weasley was glaring at him with real anger. Hermione was grim-faced with antagonism. Mr. Weasley and the twins looked bemused.

Nobody seemed to actively support him.

He felt as though it was all sliding away from him. It wasn't his fault, none of it was his fault … he wasn't responsible for any of it! Ginny Weasley was wrong, Hermione was wrong - _he hadn't killed Sirius!_ _He hadn't!_ His mind jerked away from even the possibility. He turned to Ron, desperately hoping for some help, "Ron …?"

Ginny interrupted, "Don't you dare turn against me, Ron," she sobbed, looking up from her mother, her face blotchy and wet with tears. _"I'm not wrong!"_

Harry stared at Ron. Ron would stand by him, right? He _couldn't_ lose Ron!

"You might not be wrong, but you're not right, either." Ron sounded more tired than anything else, he indicated both Hermione and Ginny, "Neither of you are."

"I'm your sister! He's just your friend!"

"I know," said Ron, "that's the point: I pick my friends, but family's just something you're stuck with."

"Ron!" gasped Mrs. Weasley.

"Harry said that being love potioned was like the Imperius," continued Ron, ignoring his mother, "well, he was wrong, it's not like the _Imperius_ - it's worse. At least with the _Imperius_ you know you've been taken over, you may not be able to do much about it, but at least you know. With a love potion, well, at least the one I had, you don't even know you've been taken over. It all seems normal, part of yourself, even though it's totally mad. You don't even know you're being manipulated. And when you come-to, you feel totally _used_. As though someone made you dance to their tune in any embarrassing way they liked, and not only could you not stop yourself you didn't even know that you _needed_ stopping. It was like somebody had picked me up, toyed with me for fun, wrung me out and then flung me aside when they'd finished having their laughs at my expense. I went completely barmy under the influence: I hit out at Harry, turned violent on him …" He looked at Hermione and Ginny, "I don't care why you think you were justified – you weren't."

There was a pause, then, with Ginny still crying, Hermione recovered.

"Oh, typical of you!" she shot. "Go on, do what you always do – back Harry! He nearly got you killed in the Department of Mysteries. All I did was try to stop him from doing it again. I acted with the best of intentions: to stop us all from getting killed – Harry included! What makes you think there won't come another time when your life's in the balance because of something involved with Harry – but maybe next time you won't be so lucky! Everyone's natural luck runs out sometime Ron – you've only got so much of it!"

She whirled on the rest of the Weasleys.

"That's the problem with all of you - you grew up thinking Harry is so special, it's practically mindless adoration. You've never known anything but the wizarding world. You've got no perspective. You don't even see him as a person. It's 'let's just all worship Harry, shall we, _especially when he's wrong!' _Well I did what I did because I had to!We're in a war and sometimes you have to do things you wish you didn't. You have to do what's necessary – and I did what was necessary to stop Harry from killing us all and killing himself!"

"Simmer down now, Hermione," soothed Mr. Weasley. "We're wizards, we do things differently."

But Hermione was not going to 'simmer down', instead, she heated up.

"You're wiz -? And I'm _not?_ And you 'do things differently'? It was your sons' potions I was using!"

"You're a Muggle-born, Hermione. Things are different for you."

"I'm a - ? _What's that got to do with it!"_ Hermione glared around at all of them: "My grandfather battled for this country when it was fighting for its very existence in the Second World War – in his own way, he _fought!_" Harry recalled Mr. Weasley's earlier reference to 'Bletchley Park', whatever that was. "And what did you lot do? – _nothing!_ Millions of Muggles were dying to save civilisation and stop a madman, and you did _nothing!_ You were just vaguely distasteful at all the fighting! Tutting that Muggles couldn't be nice and tidy about it – smug about how Dumbledore got rid of Grindelwald with a nice wave of the wand. Well I've got news: you are in a war and wars are won because people struggle to win them. Wars aren't won by enlightened civilised debate, or the 'power of love' – war is what happens when all that fails: _war is a fight_ _to the death_." She looked wildly about at them, "And you're so smug and complacent. Muggles gave up slavery centuries ago – with the house-elves, you still have it!"

She glared as though holding a torrent of invective back, but then couldn't keep it in and her voice became a shriek. "Do you know the real reason my parents didn't come to the wedding? Because you make them feel uncomfortable! You treat my parents like freaks. Patronizing them. Treating them like a couple of 'sweet harmless Muggles', like a couple of Cute L'il Mugs. When it comes to Muggles, you lot are prejudiced when you don't even _know_ that you are!"

Ron looked as stunned as the rest of the Weasleys.

Hermione looked almost wild, as though now she'd started, she couldn't stop.

"I've been called plenty of filthy things in my time by the likes of Draco Malfoy," she screeched, "but at least with awful people like him you know exactly where you are! I know he hates me. He doesn't make any bones about it. He comes up and gives it to me straight. And that's got one thing going for it – I'm openly being attacked so I can openly defend myself if I choose to! I can give as good as I get if I feel like it, because at least he's _honest _about looking down at me, he doesn't disguise it! He just comes straight out with it and gives me the chance to slug straight back! With you lot – all pursed lips and patronisation – I'm made to feel it's my fault if I feel hurt because obviously I'm just a hysterical, over-sensitive Muggleborn! I'm not even allowed to fight back, _I have to smile and simper and pretend it's alright!"_

Ron blinked – face going slack with incomprehension and shock.

She whirled on Harry: "And you don't care! So long as you're alright, that's fine! So long as you're happy at The Burrow, everything's okay! _Even when it isn't!_ You don't listen to _anything_ once you've made your mind up. If you've decided that white is black and black is white, you'll stick to it no matter what. Sometimes I think there's definitely something wrong with you," she jabbed a finger at her scull, indicating where she thought the problem lay. "You just don't think straight! And while I'm on it, I'll say what else has been on my mind. What your mother said to Voldemort, '_Not Harry, kill me, take me instead', _made no sense whatsoever! If he was bent on killing _you_, why would 'killing her instead' save you? He'd simply have killed you two seconds after killing her – which is exactly what he tried to do. It only makes sense from one angle, otherwise it's just a stupid -"

"_DON'T CALL MY MUM STUPID!"_ Harry's wrath roared out of him.

Hermione was stunned, "But I never meant _she_ was stupid, I never said that she was stupid, I -" her voice now sounded almost lost, "I said -"

"I think you should get your things and leave, dear," Mr. Weasley was very quiet but very firm, "I think people need to take time to calm down and consider. I can't see any benefit from further sniping." Hermione's face seemed to crumple slightly … "I think you need to spend tonight in your own home." Hermione looked about her at Mr. Weasley's words but no one met her eye; Harry was glaring away.

Hermione's face was a shocked mask: staring eyes in pale skin. Without saying a word she turned and left, walking stiffly, her back very straight, her face hidden by shanks of hair that was now back to being a thick, bushy mass; it was impossible to tell whether she was crying or not.

"Well, I suppose we've had a clearing of the air and now have a better idea of what people think," said Mr. Weasley, "though I must say, I don't quite understand some of it." He blinked and then shook his head in incomprehension. "In any case it could get a bit sticky from now on. Love potions aren't illegal but they are banned at Hogwarts and she was using them there, and Rita Skeeter heard that. The Ministry could even hold Professor McGonagall to account as head of Hogwarts, even if she wasn't Head at the time. It's hard to say how things are going to go now."

As soon as Hermione had left with her belongings, everyone returned to The Burrow.

It was dark now and things had been so confused and chaotic that Harry saw that some of the guests had even left their Thestrals in the paddock.

As they moved back to the house an angry Harry tried to ignore Mrs. Weasley screeching at the twins: _"The disgrace on the family – your sister involved in the potioning, and your own potions involved too! You'll end up like Mundungus Fletcher! He's in Azkaban for his messing about! Do you want to join him?"_

He didn't know how Ron felt about the accusations Hermione had slung at the Weasleys but he knew how he felt about what she had done to him. And she'd called his mum stupid – called her stupid in her dying moments! Saying she'd made no sense! _And_ she'd accused him of something awful: getting Sirius killed. '_You were the reason Sirius was even in the Department! … It was your fault he died! IT WAS YOUR FAULT! YOU KILLED HIM!'_

Harry jumped as Mrs. Weasley's shouting grew so loud it broke through his thoughts. She wanted the twins to close Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes as a public acknowledgement of shame. _"Why, so we can be poor on top of everything else? We know you like to think of us all as 'poor but honest', Mum, but the honest part's just publicly gone out the window and adding 'poor' won't bring it back." … "Yeah, we're already known as shady, Mum, so we'll take 'rich and dishonest' over 'poor but truthful' any day. If we lose our money we're not going to be poor and redeemed, we'll just be poor and dodgy."_

"I can't stay here after tomorrow, Ron, I just can't."

Ron turned to him, "We'll go," - Harry felt a small but very welcome relief at that 'we' – "we'll be off tomorrow, like we said we would."

"We'll make a list of stuff to take with us and then we'll go."

Harry immediately jolted, a word cannoning through his mind … Oh hell!Oh hell!Oh _HELL!_

"What's wrong?" Ron jerked him a look.

"Hermione's bloody _list!"_ Harry tried to keep his voice low. "She made her – her _thingy_ list, don't you remember? She said she'd destroy it but then we rowed and she stormed out! I can't remember what she did with that sodding list and now she's gone!"

"Balls! Come on. Quick! We'll look for it in the house!"

Racing upstairs they rifled through the rubbish in Ron's waste-paper basket, with Ron finding the note from Petunia that Harry had only part-read. Right now though, they had to find Hermione's list.

The screaming now came from below them as everyone else was in the kitchen; Ginny and Mrs. Weasley were still screeching at each other.

"_You silly girl! Do you think you can potion people and have nothing happen?" … "You can talk, Mum! You put Draught of Peace in that vase of flowers in his bedroom when he was here last year"… "Well only as a scent! Only as a mild sedative!" _

"God, the women in my family are such an embarrassment!" cringed Ron, desperately flipping through paper.

"_You just had a crush on him!" … "Well you had a crush on Gilderoy Lockhart and you told us about love potions!" … "What? When? - Do you think I wanted you to go round poisoning people?" _They couldn't hear Ginny's next words, only Mrs. Weasley's shrieked response. _"What? You don't want to go back to school? You're going back, my girl! You're safer there than you are here! I don't care what the other children will think! You should have thought of that before you started all this! Do you think you can just do something like this and have nothing happen? There are going to be consequences to all this!"_

And then, as if on cue, there came a mighty knock at the door like the clap of doom and a voice that almost echoed.

"_Ministry Security! Open up!"_


	12. Chapter 12

Title: (Chapter 12)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. 

Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Chapter 12**

"You can't take Harry!" Mrs. Weasley's voice was a strangulated screech.

"I'm afraid I may, Mrs. Weasley." Scrimgeour sounded almost charming, almost conversational. "In the current climate, as Minister I have Special Powers to act unilaterally in the case of a Wizarding National Security emergency. And I am afraid the Chosen One being potioned left and right here in your own home, constitutes an emergency."

"But you can't!"

"The _Daily Prophet_ is already mocking up the headlines for Rita Skeeter's article tomorrow. This is going to get out. The Ministry must be seen to do something."

"Rita Skeeter's just a trouble-maker!" blurted Harry. "You shouldn't be paying attention to her! She's an unregistered Animagus, she can turn into a beetle – that's why she hates Hermione, because Hermione figured it out and used it to get Rita to behave herself and stop writing rubbish!"

"An unregistered Animagus, eh? And Miss Granger 'used it to get Rita to behave herself'? How very enterprising. A 'deceiving love potion abuser' _and_ ablackmailer? You know, I might have to revise my estimate of Miss Granger, she might make rather a good Black-Ops agent." Scrimgeour was clearly amused.

"You should be arresting Rita Skeeter, not reading her articals!"

"Be quiet, Harry." That was Mr. Weasley, silencing Harry while looking bluntly at Scrimgeour. "What's this all about Rufus?"

In the kitchen of The Burrow, they made a very peculiar group: the beautifully dressed Scrimgeour in one of his habitual business suits; the Aurors dressed in dark clothes; the Weasleys in their wedding robes.

No-one was sure quite who was being accused of what, or who had what power.

For once Ginny Weasley did not irritatedly complain or pull away from her mother, instead she half-hid behind her, nervous, all-eyes.

There were some Ministry officials too: Dashwood for one, who was shifting uncomfortably, and Harry thought he looked rather queasy actually. He recalled Dashwood wanting to use the loo earlier and then having gone to use the bathroom at The Burrow, to skip the queues. Had he swallowed something dodgy at the Reception?

Dashwood looked edgy, as though he'd rather not be there. Nervous, he kept surreptitiously checking his watch as though somehow time was running out. Oddly, he looked like a worried man who was late with his medication.

Dashwood caught Harry looking at him and glared.

Evidently Dashwood was not someone pre-disposed towards liking Harry Potter.

Harry was in borrowed robes, arms folded, glasses sliding down his nose, and feeling very angry. He was alarmed at how very aware he was that neither he, nor any of the Weasleys, had their wands on them when the Ministry figures did, even Dashwood. The erstwhile wedding guest had obviously visited the security drop-off, from whence he had retrieved his wand and his spell-sealed Ministerial briefcase, which now hung from a strap across his shoulder.

Harry and Ron had been ordered to leave their wands in their bedroom by a querulous Mrs. Weasley. Unsure of what was going on they had done so – only to have been scanned by the Aurors when they came down anyway, to make sure they were wand-free.

Having been unable to take wands to the Reception, the rest of the Weasleys had theirs resting on the mantelpiece in the parlour: two whole rooms away. Even if they had their wands, they could not easily get away: Scrimgeour's men had set a nil-Apparition zone about the house, with the perimeter two hundred yards away in the dark.

Dashwood had demurred – _'are you sure that's entirely necessary?'_ – but had been ignored by the hard-faced Auror crew.

At least the defunct ring and the faux locket were hidden in Ron's bedroom though; they'd slipped them behind a loose bit of skirting board. If either of them had been found on Harry, some very incriminating explanations might have been required.

Looking covertly aside, Harry saw that Ron looked as uncomfortable as he did.

"Have you got any rights to this?" bit out George. "I'm a business-man. I have legal advice. There are such things as warrants, you know!"

Scrimgeour turned his attention to him, charming, urbane, but with the sliver of a smiling threat. "Yes, Mr. Weasley, there are. And there are also such things as responsible-trading laws and product-standards, of which Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes may be in contravention, following this love potion farrago."

George promptly shut his mouth.

"We may have to close your shop down, just temporarily, you understand."

Scrimgeour's threat was implicit: that if George didn't shut up, then the shop might close for good under the weight of Ministry pressure.

Dashwood, now looking somewhat sweaty, jolted as though he'd just woken up to something.

"Er … Minister? Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes _does _furbish the Ministry with rather a lot of useful equipment: spell-proof clothing, Darkness Powder," he nodded to indicate the box of it on the table, the one left there that morning by George when his mum had asked him to put it away, "instant hexes for the out-of-practice …?"

Scrimgeour winced and suddenly looked slightly more doubtful about shutting Weasleys' down.

Dashwood pressed his point, even though he looked like he'd prefer to be holding his stomach and running outside.

"Plus, Minister, almost certainly they were selling Wonder Witch products and love potions to a _lot _of the girls who were at Hogwarts – including to the daughters of many Ministry officials?" – Fred and George suddenly looked a lot more hopeful – "Any decision to escalate the matter might have unwanted effects upon Ministry morale …?"

The somewhat ill-looking Dashwood was effectively telling Scrimgeour that if he made a fuss which subsequently dragged in the daughters of half his own Ministry, then Fudge might not be the only Minister to get the boot through being undermined by his own staff!

"Perhaps now is not the time?" suggested Dashwood, trying to be discreet about clenching his arms over his stomach. "Civic duty and all that? Possibly we may have to tarnish our reputation for spotless probity in this _one_ instance – purely for the sake of the wizarding nation, you understand. At a time like this, the wizarding world needs to look to the Ministry as a solid rock of reasonableness and certainty -"

"Yes, not as a laughing-stock of self-serving scramblers with a gaggle of love-potioning little madams for daughters …" Scrimgeour wearily finished Dashwood's sentence for him.

Dashwood almost groaned, cradling his stomach before finishing with a purely perfunctory, "Quite, Sir."

If Harry hadn't been so tense, he might have actually laughed out loud.

"Well _my_ daughter certainly didn't potion anyone!" yapped Mrs. Weasley, as though it was under dispute.

Fred sniggered and Dashwood raised a pained eyebrow to Scrimgeour … '_See what I mean…?'_

"Be quiet, Molly," interjected Mr. Weasley. He continued, "Look, Rufus, you can't just come in and take someone, no matter how you might feel about matters in general." Mr. Weasley sounded very calm and very sure, "Last time I checked, being a potion-victim didn't make someone a criminal. So, I'll repeat: what's this really all about?"

Harry knew what it was about: it was Scrimgeour trying to get leverage over Harry. Hermione's potioning was simply an excuse to swoop in with intimidating talk of 'protective custody'.

Scrimgeour coughed, "True, Arthur. Perhaps things are getting a little out of hand. Perhaps we could all come to some mutually beneficial arrangement?"

Harry bristled, because here it was: Scrimgeour had shown them the threat – one he probably couldn't get away with carrying out, but he was daring them to call his bluff – and was now about to smoothly present them with a better alternative: a compromise.

Threaten someone with something awful, and something which they otherwise viewed as irksome and wouldn't have previously agreed to, suddenly looked downright reasonable.

Scrimgeour gestured to his Aurors, who each took a step back, though Dawlish looked churlish at having to do so. For some reason, Dawlish reminded Harry of Aunt Marge's dog, Ripper, denied a bite out of a particularly juicy postman and sulking about it.

"I am aware, Arthur, that Harry may have information which could help the wizarding world in its battle against You Know Who, but so far Harry has been remarkably recalcitrant in keeping us all informed."

Which was true. Harry knew he hadn't told the Order much, and that Mr. Weasley knew it.

Scrimgeour continued, "I'm afraid that the Ministry no longer finds it reasonable that the fate of the wizarding nation rests solely in the hands of a teenaged boy – however, upright, civic-minded and," Scrimgeour forcibly swallowed a great lump of irony, "noble."

Harry felt Arthur Weasley slide him a quick, measuring look.

"I hardly think it's unreasonable that Harry share with us anything that might be of value to the safety of the Wizarding Nation," smoothed Scrimgeour.

Harry felt his spine prickle: Scrimgeour was making it all sound so very reasonable …

"Do you think it's unreasonable, Arthur?"

Mr. Weasley coughed uncomfortably: put it the way Scrimgeour had and no-one could disagree that Harry should talk. Even the defensive Mrs. Weasley looked uncomfortable, as though she found a sliver of something they could all agree with in Scrimgeour's stance.

But Harry couldn't tell Scrimgeour anything. Start blabbing about any one little thing and the whole Horcrux mess would quickly come out – and Voldemort could not be allowed the chance to find out that anyone knew.

"If Harry thought he could tell you anything – he'd already be saying it!" snapped Ron, loyally.

Harry caught the twins sliding their brother a look – they both knew that Ron knew a lot more than they did about Harry's dealings and maybe, this time, they felt that Ron's opinion was actually worth listening to? Particularly when, as Dashwood had obliquely pointed out, Scrimgeour couldn't touch them without endangering the Ministry's reputation and thus his own career?

Were they on his side, no questions asked?

Scrimgeour looked around, "For instance, I am sure we would all like to know the wording of the prophecy which Harry is reputed to have heard? Plus anything he may have been informed of by the late Professor Dumbledore?"

Behind Scrimgeour, Dashwood - looking desperately at his watch - was suddenly attentive despite that fact that he was now grimacing, very sweaty, clutching at his stomach and practically greenish.

Some of the Aurors were giving Dashwood very odd looks, disdainfully stepping back slightly as though he might throw up over their shoes.

"Those desk-jockey types can never take their drink," one whispered.

The Ministerial golden-boy looked as though his guts were writhing from having swallowed live snakes.

With the Auror attention on Dashwood, the twins took the chance to exchange glances of quick calculation and then look across at Ron, who was looking back, giving a curt, almost imperceptible nod.

Harry felt a spark of hope: someone was going to make a move.

Without warning, the twins stumbled for the box of Darkness Powder on the table and had the advantage of a second's-worth of surprise and got it as the Aurors jolted in shock.

"Oh for heaven's sake -" sighed Scrimgeour.

"Unnhhh," groaned Dashwood.

Still trying to keep an eye on the twins, the Aurors skittered away from Dashwood, equally keen to avoid being vomited on.

Dashwood bent double, shivering and moaning as though he were going to throw up … he was shivering so hard he looked as though his skin was almost rippling …

Scrimgeour flicked him an disparaging glance over his shoulder then exasperatedly slid out his commands.

He waved an airy hand, indicating Harry and the Weasleys. "Oh just – just shoot them all with Memory Charms. We'll sort the mess out later."

"What?" cried Mr. Weasley at Scrimgeour, "you need authorisation for this!"

Shivering and groaning, Dashwood almost looked like he was _melting_ …

The Aurors stood about blankly in confusion.

Harry and Ron looked at each other, horrified. Memory Charms? What if they forgot everything – what if they forgot their mission!

"You can't just go around Memory Charming -!" Mrs. Weasley screeched.

"- and while you're at it," murmured Scrimgeour to his Aurors, "do remember to grab Potter."

"Oh … buggery, buggery, _bollocks!"_

The definitive, silencing explosion came from the direction of the doubled-upDashwood who seemed to have given up the fight on something.

Everyone looked at him, astonished.

Wasn't there something a little …_different _about him?

Certainly the kitchen was dimly lit, but wasn't his hair lightening somewhat, wasn't he growing a little thinner, a little taller, wasn't he getting a little paler? Wasn't he turning into someone who looked a lot like … Draco Malfoy?

Malfoy looked up from his doubled, cramped position, looking at the box of Darkness Powder which the twins grasped.

"Well go on then, you stupid Gryffindor bastards," he exhorted, scrabbling about in his briefcase, nodding at the box, "- _bloody-well_ _throw it!"_

X X X

The kitchen door to the outside had been locked with a Colloportus, so no way out that way, and - "Amnesius Totalus!" - Arthur Weasley had been hit straight in the head - before darkness blanked everything.

Mrs. Weasley had screamed in the pitch-black.

Ginny's high, thin wail had been heard.

The twins had swore and scuffled.

Ron immediately bumped into Harry as both stumbled in the dark.

There were shouts, yells and random spellfire. Then Scrimgeour called out orders above it all, "Get Potter, grab Malfoy and Obliviate the rest - I want this locked down!"

Alarmed, Harry felt his collar firmly gripped in a skinny fist as he was yanked backwards in the direction of what felt like the stairs.

"_Ron!"_ he yelled, flailing.

Blinded by the dead-black, Ron thrashed about, arms waving wildly, trying to grab Harry. Then he heard the tell-tale scrape of the door to the stairs and, armed with a mental map born of a childhood spent sneaking down in the dark for night-time snacks, lurched after Harry.

He reached the door and ripped it open and blinked in the sudden light as he abruptly left the darkness of the kitchen and saw … a grimly determined Draco Malfoy stuffing his Hand of Glory back in his briefcase, whilst yanking Harry backwards up the stairs.

Malfoy was armed and Harry wasn't – Harry and Ron's wands were still in Ron's bedroom, five flights up.

"What are you doing here, you git?" yelled Ron.

"Let go!" struggled Harry. "What do you want me for!"

"I want to get _out_, Potter! Isn't it obvious? They'll happily hex me to Hades and back, but Saviour Boy? – I think they'll be a bit more careful where they point their wands if I've got you as Body Armour! Now shift your baggy -"

Malfoy did not have time to finish his sentence as an Auror stumbled through the stairs-door, blinking in the light. In a jolt of panic, Malfoy Stupefied him unconscious. Ron had flattened himself against the wall to dodge the spell, but Malfoy then shot him with a Jelly-Legs anyway and Ron was sent sprawling. Furious, Harry twisted and tried to wrest the wand off Malfoy, but Malfoy ruthlessly kicked the legs out from under Harry: fighting dirty was an integral part of the Malfoy DNA.

"I haven't got time to mess about here, Potter." Malfoy desperately shoved his wand back in Harry's face, "Now, move it!"

Spells were still going off below them as the twins did what they could to slow the Aurors but it wouldn't be long before other Aurors, and maybe even Scrimgeour, accidentally fell upon the way to the stairs and could catch up with them in the light.

Harry gave a split-second consideration to telling Malfoy where to stick it, but remembered again that any move to get away from the Aurors could only do him good.

And besides … Malfoy hadn't shot the Professor on the tower. Hadn't and never would have, no matter what the pressure upon him.

"Take the spell off Ron and let us get our wands! It'll be the three of us against the Aurors then! You can trust us, we won't turn on you!"

"_Uh?"_ Ron looked up, completely disbelieving as he struggled on the floor, trying to get his floppy, squiggly legs to work.

"Quite, Weasel! The most sensible thing you've ever said!" Malfoy jabbed his wand in Harry's throat. "Of course you 'won't turn on me', Potter – after all, _Sectumsempra_ was only an accident!" His voice was almost squeaking in outrage, "What do you think I am – _stupid?"_

Ron's voice could be heard answering from below, "Yeah, a stupid, vain, arrogant, Slytherin, git who lets Death Eaters into school and -"

Malfoy randomly smashed a spell down the stairs.

"Ow!" yelled Ron.

Alerted by the shouting and spellfire, Aurors stumbled toward the stairs-door and many arms could be seen reaching out of the billowing blackness that filled the doorway.

There were a lot of them. It would only be a second before the Aurors stepped through, and for all that Malfoy had his wand, they were almost certainly wearing hex-proof clothing anyway.

"Oh – _bollocks!"_ yelled Malfoy, and flung an exasperated _Finito Incantatum_ at Ron, who was then able to get up and kick the first Auror in the stomach as he came through.

A jumble of bodies thrashed through the door, a mixture of Aurors and twins.

Ron scrambled back up the stairs, clearly aiming to grab Malfoy by his skinny throat and resort to his usual tool of Malfoy-debate: thumping him.

Hedwig could now be heard screaming from above, on her perch in Ron's room.

From the bottom of the stairs, a spell shot over Ron's shoulder and Malfoy took his chance to slow Ron down by desperately calling out, "Grab that red-head! He's got Order secrets!"

One Auror who had a twin in each fist called out, "Which one?"

"Oh for -! The _ugly_ one!" screamed Malfoy.

"Oh, you _spiteful bastard!"_ Ron clawed up the stairs three at a time, chasing Malfoy.

Two Aurors started racing up the stairs after Ron, who turned the landing just in time to avoid a Stupefy that smashed into the wall.

Malfoy and the struggling Harry were up three flights now and Malfoy looked about desperately: _"Alohomora!"_

He smashed a door open – it was the bathroom.

"God, what an 'effing pit," spat Malfoy, racing across the bathroom to the window. "Do you realise that _seven people_ use the one lavatory in this hovel! Imagine sitting on it after someone else has! _That's practically unsanitary!"_

He looked out of the window.

"Get _off!"_ yelled Harry, finally breaking free and turning for the door.

"_Colloportus!"_ yelled Malfoy, slamming the door shut against him. He grabbed Harry by the collar, swung him round, and sank his fist straight into Harry's gut. "That, Potter, is for insulting Mother that time in Malkin's - you nasty little _oik!"_

A wheezing, bent-double Harry could barely get his breath.

Above him, Malfoy yanked a small glass vial from his briefcase, containing only a smear of liquid gold - _was that Felix Felicis?_ Malfoy popped the stopper off it and appraised it: _"I'm sure this stuff was a duff batch. It never bloody works!"_ He then licked the stopper; even that tiny bit represented half which had been there. Malfoy's voice was hissing, "These people are prepared to put Saviour Boy in a Ministry lock-up box, Potter, so they won't extend even that 'courtesy' to me. I have no intention of getting caught. I am getting out of here, and you are going to help me do it."

Ron raced past outside, visible through the frosted glass of the bathroom door; luckily for Malfoy, he clearly thought Harry had gone higher. Equally luckily, the Aurors assumed the same and chased after the noisy Ron.

Harry, winded, made to yell and was stopped by Malfoy's _Silencio_; Malfoy shoved Harry toward the bathroom window and Harry began to furiously back-pedal, feet slipping on the worn lino. He was _not _going out of that window!

He would have howled if he hadn't been Silencio'd as he found himself flying through the air, hanging upside down by the heel. He told himself that he had definitely not given an internal 'girly scream' as he saw the dirt yard flying toward his head: a sight only marginally less scary than the subsequent one of Malfoy plummeting toward him on a wildly uncontrolled trajectory as Malfoy tried to get down by levitating his own shoes.

Both boys landed in utter chaos, but – luckily – no bones broken.

Ron yelled from high above, he had reached his own bedroom – no Harry – and was now besieged by Aurors.

In Ron's room, Hedwig was screaming in a panic.

Harry rammed an elbow into Malfoy's throat and struggled up to try and help Ron, only to find himself shooting backward across the yard, driven by an _Impedimentia_.

Malfoy's face was a mask of anger.

"Don't be stupid, Potter! What do you think you're going to do at this range without a wand – tell the Aurors off and call them nasty names?" Malfoy peered keenly about, completely ignoring Ron's fight for survival; instead he pointed in the direction of the remaining few Thestrals left after the chaotic end to the Reception. "Two-hundred yards that way," he barked. "That's where I'm going, a nice little hop-off point." He shoved his wand under Harry's jaw, "And because I'm going there, you're going there too, Body Armour Boy."

Harry looked desperately back for Ron, but Malfoy grabbed him by the collar and started running. It was quite clear that Malfoy was brooking no objection, and he had the wand. Gripped by the collar, Harry felt the wet grass squeaking under his shoes as they streaked across the field.

Harry twisted his head angrily, trying to get a look at The Burrow.

Ron was clearly silhouetted against his bedroom light – on the highest floor in the house, just under the attic. Ron appeared to be wildly stuffing things into a bag – wands? Horcruxes? Cloak? Marauders' Map? – whilst trying to fire spells at the door. Aurors were thumping at his bedroom door whilst more milled in the yard below, looking up in the dark.

Then Harry remembered: Ron could get away – _Harry's broom was under the bed!_

As if by telepathy, Ron clearly picked up the broom – a black shape against the white square of the bedroom window.

Which then flicked open from the outside, and Ron gawped at the seemingly empty window as Moody's Invisibility Cloak slipped off and the old Auror levitated clumsily through the opening, roaring and hurling spell-fire at the locked door.

He'd been 'nearby' after all.

The startled Ron now had his packed bag over his shoulder, his wand in one hand, and the broom in the other with Hedwig screaming behind him.

Half way in and out the window, he was clearly wondering whether to push off and fly when his bedroom door was shot open and multiple reflex wand-shots blasted into the bedroom.

There was a blur of movement, a roar from Moody, and a great, screeching caw as a huge pattern of spread wings flashed in the window – Hedwig – the spells were deflected … there was a sudden silence … Ron looked back, frozen, but was then knocked off the window ledge by a ricochet from the deflected spell hitting the window frame.

Toppling from five floors up.

"_NO!"_ Harry's horrified scream tore through the air, smashing through the _Silencio_, audible to all.

He didn't care. He felt a wild panic and then an even wilder elation as he saw Ron, twisting horizontally through the air as he fell, wand gripped in his fist, Disapparate a split second before he hit the cobbles!

"_GO RON!_" Harry yelled, fist pumping wildly in the air.

"Potter - you _MORON!"_ screamed Malfoy, aghast, as in response to Harry's shout the attention of every Auror was upon them. Malfoy looked disgustedly at Harry, "Potter, have you ever thought that you might not be unlucky so much as really, really stupid?"

Harry saw that Malfoy was limping heavily from the fall – was his little bit of luck running out? If he wasn't careful, Malfoy would end up like Scrimgeour.

The Aurors were now racing toward them and – with Ron safely gone - Harry turned and lurched for the Thestrals, but he only got a few steps when he was thumped by Malfoy and pinned by the throat again as Malfoy held him, backing up, using Harry as protection.

The Aurors slowed as they saw that Malfoy – _junior Death Eater_ - had Harry Potter – _Boy Saviour_ - by the throat and with his wand pointed at him: Body Armour.

From his choked position, Harry caught glimpses of the Aurors bent low, fanning out and preparing to charge from various angles. Then the Aurors paused at some signal and a cool voice called out, "Is that really you, Draco, or is that just another disguise?"

It was Scrimgeour, appraising what little he could see of Malfoy.

Malfoy shouted his reply into the dark, "Maybe it's me, maybe not - maybe I'll turn out to be someone totally different?"

"We managed to Memory Charm all the Weasleys at The Burrow _except_ young Ronald. Fabulous escape by him, by the way. Daring. Apparating as you're falling? Most people wouldn't even think of it. Lucky, is young Mr. Weasley. Someone should warn him though: sometimes you don't get away with it, sometimes the odds really are too great."

Harry bristled but said nothing.

Scrimgeour emerged from the night, walking toward them, using his cane for support.

"The suit does look like something Ministry would wear, Draco – well chosen," Scrimgeour drawled on.

Harry was stabbed by the thought that although cut for a Ministry sleaze, the suit fitted Malfoy almost perfectly: it was a disguise that fitted rather too well.

"Shut up about suits, Scrimgeour! You're a ruthless git! Stop dressing it up in charm!" Harry's voice felt suddenly hoarse but he yelled on. "Professor Dumbledore wasn't like you! He showed that there was another way!"

"Dumbledore had a habit of being secretive Harry, of not sharing intelligence, of keeping things to himself so that others could not make effective decisions as they lacked the information upon which to base them. I'm sure he didn't see his behaviour as a fault, Harry, but it did cost lives and in the end it may have cost his own."

"Shut up!"

"Dumbledore didn't share information, Harry. In any case, I _do_ share -"

"When it suits you!"

"- I am quite prepared to share my Aurors with you -"

"They're not your Aurors, they're the Ministry's!"

"- I _am _the Ministry, Harry."

The words hung in the air, their implication stunning,

"It's reality, Harry. You've been fed a lot of fairy-stories."

"Seconded!" yelled Malfoy with a cracked laugh, still trailing Harry back through the dark.

"Did you think I approved of where Dumbledore saw fit to have you brought up, Harry? Like a little orphan boy in a fairy-story? There you were, a helpless wizard babe who'd saved us all to boot – and where does he put you? At Hogwarts? With the Ministry? With a decent wizard family who'd be proud to raise you as one of their own? No! With Muggles! He doesn't even put you with kind Muggles – he puts you with a shower I wouldn't even trust to bring up a pig!"

"Oh - will you _stop_ feeding his orphan-under-the-stairs fantasy?" screeched Malfoy. "He's bad enough as it is!"

"The Professor was a good man and the greatest wizard who ever lived!" yelled Harry.

"You say that as though you're reading it from a book, Harry. You were needlessly raised like a character in a fairy-story, try not to sound like one!"

"In the last wizard war, arresting people and using Unforgivables on them didn't work!" yelled Harry. "Your way wasn't working in the last war!"

"And neither was Dumbledore's. He was losing until that night at your parents' house, or haven't you worked that one out yet? Just because he wasn't prepared to get his hands dirty, it didn't give him the right to tarnish anyone who was!"

"And yet he isn't the man who keeps innocent bus-conductors locked up in Azkaban!"

"Are you two both mad?" howled Malfoy. "A time like this, and you're both shouting the odds about _philosophy?"_

Scrimgeour blinked and started, almost as though he'd tripped up. The he recovered. "Draco?" he called, as though truly curious about it, "what did you actually want here?"

"Don't listen to him," hissed Harry, "he's trying to distract you and slow you down."

"No, really? I'd never have guessed!" Malfoy hissed, then raised his voice as he kept shuffling back, "Don't keep forcing me back, Scrimgeour, I might trip up and shoot the 'Chosen One'. I know some very nasty spells: _Incendio_ is always a good one, not to mention a nice Killing Spell."

Scrimgeour paused, and then held his hand out, indicating to his Aurors and guards to stop advancing. "We can't let you go, Draco – not if you're taking Harry with you."

Harry felt a spike of mad panic. Was Scrimgeour offering to let Malfoy go if he just gave them Harry? He could feel his pulse beating in his ears now, because if Scrimgeour was offering that, then Malfoy would surely accept!

"Well, I would give him back," called Malfoy, "but I've got this weird phobia about being shot and captured? My personal medi-wizard says I'm allergic to hexes." His voice grew harder, "You'd _have_ to shoot me, just to stop me from getting away and telling people that you were going to hold Potter prisoner! How dumb do you think I am? And no – that wasn't a trick question!"

Harry felt almost nauseous with relief: as far as keeping Harry as a hostage was concerned, Malfoy had decided there was still something in it for Malfoy. The blond boy kept shuffling backward, favouring his good leg, his wand continually to Harry's throat. Harry turned his head as much as he could; they'd traveled about 200 yards now - just a locked gate to get through - and Malfoy would be in the Thestral field.

They backed into the padlocked gate and Harry wondered if they were going to clamber over it backwards, seeing how Malfoy couldn't open it with his wand as he had to keep that pressed to Harry's throat.

Harry was just wondering if he could somehow negotiate a way to get the gate open for them when, with his free hand, Malfoy slashed at the lock with something that saw the padlock pop and the gate swing loose.

It was a knife like Sirius' old one: it could undo any lock, untie any knot.

Malfoy re-pocketed the knife and Harry looked back to Scrimgeour who was coming forward again, prompted by seeing how close Malfoy was to transport … Just a few more steps …

"_What the …?"_ Malfoy had stepped back into the first of the Thestrals but did not seem to know it was there. The Thestral he'd thumped into turned its head gave an affronted whicker, catching Malfoy with a soft swish of its tail. Malfoy looked about him, wide eyed and then - "Bloody Thestrals!" He pushed at the air randomly, waving his free arm about. He accidentally caught the Thestral on it's bony rump, "Get out of the way, you mangy nag!" It was quite clear he could not see it. If Harry hadn't been trapped in such a desperate situation, he might have found it hilarious.

"Draco, this is the offer: leave Harry." Scrimgeour's voice was sharper now, "Back away from him. After that, you can take your chances, we won't try to stop you. Just leave Harry."

NO! Harry was horrified. 

"Are you _kidding?"_ bawled Malfoy. "Do you think I'd trust you, when I know what you've done? And don't look all surprised, Scrimgeour, you know what I'm talking about, someone was bound to work it out. I told you: _I'm not_ _stupid!"_

Scrimgeour tensed and waved his Aurors back slightly.

Harry and Malfoy were in the middle of the small herd now, being bumped about with Malfoy continuing to shuffle both boys backward through the cover provided by the Thestrals.

"Harry," Scrimgeour's voice was higher now, filled with tension as Malfoy took them ever closer to the non-Apparition perimeter, "Malfoy is a Death Eater! He let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts. He tried to murder Dumbledore. He will take you to You Know Who. You will be tortured and killed – and that might be the very least of it."

Harry could see that Scrimgeour meant it. There was a horrible chance that it was actually true.

"We captured a Death Eater on the tower and made him talk. It's about the Chosen One, Harry: we didn't get much out of him, but before he died he told us that 'the Chosen One's soul must be readied'. You Know Who has plans for the Chosen One. You are the Chosen One, Harry – it's got to be you, it's not as though we know of any others! You must stay here. You can't go with Malfoy. Fight him. Stay with us." He held his hands out placatingly, "I've made mistakes here, Harry, I realise that now. I only had the best of intentions, Harry – I have to think of the whole wizarding world - but I know now that should have been more mature in how I treated you, but it can all be fixed …"

For a second, Harry wavered …

"Try it, Potter," Malfoy snarled into his ear, "and I'll kill you before you get ten feet!"

Harry recalled the tower – _killing is not nearly so easy as the innocent believe_. Malfoy would never have killed Dumbledore, no matter what … Harry was faced with an immediate choice: Malfoy or Scrimgeour, right now which one did he trust most – or, more properly, mistrust the least? He looked about him as much as he could, given that Malfoy had him by the throat. "Malfoy," he whispered, "we're practically through the Thestrals, if you're using them for cover to Apparate away, we need to do it soon or well have lost our chance."

He supposed he'd made up his mind, then.

He felt Malfoy start slightly, surprised, and then Malfoy sounded almost conversational, "Let's go for a ride, Potter. You might not like our destination, but who cares what you think? The thing that's most important to me, is me."

Scrimgeour turned to his men, "Shoot him! Stun them! Stop them!"

Too late.

The last thing Harry saw was Scrimgeour's horrified face as the Minister for Magic lurched toward him, an arm outstretched to snatch him back, as he and Malfoy whirled off – a last bit of luck for Malfoy - off on an Apparition journey to who knew where …


	13. Chapter 13

Title: (Chapter 13)   
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Chapter 13**

There was a sparking crack and two figures popped out of thin air – one yelling out loud. The figures seemed to hang for a second and then both crashed to the floor in an inexpert Side-along Apparition landing.

It was two lads. The one who was yelling had a shock of black hair and was clad in boring, vaguely drippy, grey robes. The other had floppy white-blond hair and wore a beautifully cut suit that made him look like the heir to an empire. As they smashed to the floor the yelling stopped – but the slightly panicked hooting of a startled owl was heard.

"Potter, you squeal like Parkinson whenever I get her knickers off."

Draco Malfoy turned to his eagle-owl which was balanced – alarmed and wings spread - on its T-bar perch. "Shhhhh … don't be so silly …" He sounded almost soothing until he turned back to Harry, his face twisting, "Shut up, Potter, you're spooking my owl."

Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy had escaped from the Aurors but Harry did not have time to be happy about it: he may have thrown in his lot with Malfoy in order to escape imminent capture, but that was a far way from actively trusting him when he didn't have to. Amazingly, Harry still had his glasses on; he shoved them up his nose and looked about wildly.

He was in a low-lit, high ceilinged room, the walls of which were a mix of highly-polished wooden paneling and floor-to-ceiling glassed-in bookcases. Above the fireplace was a large, newly-hung painting signed _Modigliani,_ which Harry found faintly embarrassing: a reclining, nude woman all in pinks and oranges. Elsewhere, there were leather chairs and sofas and small tables, and whirring, clicking, almost scientific-looking instruments. Apart from the painting, it reminded him of a posh gentleman's club or the study of a wealthy gentleman of scientific interests. It was far nicer than the shabby, faded drawing room at Grimmauld Place. It looked like it was kept up by a house-elf who actually cared.

He lurched to his feet and set off at the nearest thing he could muster to a run, stumbling toward a set of polished mahogany double-doors. Wherever he was, he had to get out. There could be Death Eaters, Malfoy could be about to hand him over –

He was shot in the back and was sent hurtling across the polished, parquet floor. He landed badly and heard his wristwatch smash.

"In case you've forgotten: I don't like you, Potter. So thanks for giving me an excuse to shoot."

Landing hard, Harry just had time to catch the grim, angry, almost vengeful look on Malfoy's face before Malfoy jabbed his wand at Harry and began magically flicking him around the room.

The violence made the owl screech in a panic, spreading its wings and half taking off from its perch.

"Why is it, Potter, that everything which goes wrong for me has got you at the back of it?" Malfoy was grinding his words out as, to his horrified disbelief, Harry found himself smacking about the walls and floor, roaring in shock as he was flung up and down. "You swan about as Saviour Boy when my father is in solitary in Azkaban - the only thing for amusement being a filthy Muggle chess set! – and today I nearly get caught - _all_ _because Ginny Weasley can't keep her mitts off you!"_

Harry flew through the air, arms and legs flailing, yelling in panic and pain. Spinning wildly, hurtling through horrible impacts, terrified that each smacking collision would actually break a bone, Harry found his voice because he had to, _"Stop, Malfoy!"_

Malfoy simply carried on going as though Harry hadn't spoken.

The owl screeched in panic.

"Think you'll be a mass of bruises by now?" Malfoy shouted, as Harry whacked into the floor, "because I bloody well was! That 'bouncing ferret' with Mad-Eye Moody? I got bashed about because of who my father was! I was flung around by a bloody _teacher_ and nobody did anything! No Dumbledore running around fretting, no infirmary wing open all hours for me – all I got was a bucket of Murtlap juice brewed up by Nott and a bunch of Gryffindors wetting their knickers, laughing at me! Moody gave me hell all that year, picking on me whenever he could. I never even got to see those dragons in that tournament!" Malfoy was now almost grunting with the effort of hurling Harry about, "I seem to recall that you -" _slam!_ –"were one of the ones" – _slam!_ – "doing most of the laughing" – _slam!_

A wild-eyed, terrified Harry caught a flash of Malfoy as he flew past: bright pink with anger and effort, his usually sleek hair all over his face. Harry found himself shouting back before he'd even thought what he might say, "He was a bloody Death Eater! That wasn't Moody flinging you about – that was that nutter Barty Crouch and he was a complete bloody Death Eater!"

Harry cartwheeled through the air, limbs flying every which-way. He banged painfully against the back of a sofa, shuddering from the impact, but it slowed him fractionally and he managed to dig his nails in, clamping himself there, grimacing with the effort of trying to resist being hurled about.

The owl was cawing hysterically now, wings wildly spread.

"What's that got to do with it!" shouted Malfoy. "No-one knew he was Crouch, everyone thought he was Moody, and Hogwarts never even tried to sack 'Moody' for it!"

Harry clawed into the sofa as Malfoy attempted to force him off it.

"Think I saved you, Potter? I just used you to escape!"

Harry's feet were being yanked vertically into the air. It was like being on a rack. He could barely hold on. There was no effort left for speaking, he could only stay gripping the edge of the sofa.

The owl was now screaming.

Malfoy ploughed his all into a last effort to prise Harry off his perch, "You're an annoying, coddled, git Potter!"

Harry's yell was desperate, "I know you weren't going to kill him! I know you weren't going to kill Dumbledore!"

Harry felt himself being pulled almost beyond endurance and then - he collapsed to the floor in a sprawling, battered heap, no longer held upside down by the pulling force of the spell.

The power from Malfoy's wand had cut off as though a plug had been pulled.

Harry stayed on the floor, flat out, too spent to move. At least he knew one thing, surely there couldn't be any Death Eaters here, or anyone at all for that matter; if there had been, surely they would have come running at the noise?

Harry thought Malfoy's hip must still be hurting because the tall, pale boy winced when he shifted. There was a silence. Harry could hear his own struggling breathing. He had no idea what Malfoy was going to say.

The owl was still flapping but had stopped screeching.

"So you _were_ on the Tower, Potter? Thought so. Worked it out afterwards. It was the two brooms that gave it away – I knew someone else had to be there. Bet you were using that infamous Invisibility Cloak of yours, weren't you? What were you doing?" He gave a bitter snort, "Hiding behind the door?"

Battered and breathless, Harry still felt a jolt of pure anger at the realisation that he had been forced to do just that.

"Shut up, Malfoy, and drop the oh-so-superior sarcasm." Harry's voice was a hoarse rasp, "You weren't going to kill Professor Dumbledore, I was there. I saw you."

Malfoy made an abrupt, annoyed movement. Harry ignored him, struggling to his feet.

"Like the Professor said, you weren't even properly trying to kill him with the necklace and that wine. It was obvious that cursed necklace would never have got past Hogwarts' security and as for Slughorn passing that poisoned mead on, give over! He was more likely to kill himself by keeping it and having a secret snifter! That trick with the wine would've made more sense if you'd secretly been trying to kill Slughorn!" Malfoy froze and Harry grimly congratulated himself on having shut Malfoy up. "You weren't going to kill Dumbledore on that tower-top – I saw you. It turns out you've even got a little bit of Felix Felicis but you couldn't have used it trying to kill the Professor, because if you had, things would have turned out differently. You didn't use it because you secretly didn't want to kill the Professor. You aren't a killer!"

There was a pause, then Malfoy unfroze. "Well there you're wrong! I was using it: it just never bloody worked, that's all! The necklace ended up a mess - the wine ended up with Slughorn! So who says I'm not a killer? How do you know I wasn't going to kill him?"

"Oh for God's sake, Felix Felicis is a -"

_A pure distillation of luck, and a way of getting what you really wanted. But all of Malfoy's deadly plans had backfired … _

It was an astounding thought, but even Hermione had said it: at Ron's bedside after the episode with the poisoned oak-matured mead, Hermione had sat there and announced that it was pure luck – her very words, _pure luck_ - that the necklace and the wine hadn't killed anyone. On the tower-top, the Professor had told Malfoy, 'you are very lucky that your intended victims survived.'

Malfoy had been using the Felicis; had it given him what he secretly wanted?

"Malfoy, you were using Felicis! Hasn't it occurred to you that your plans failed because you didn't want them to succeed?"

Malfoy smacked to a stop, looking as though he'd tripped over an unexpected step in the dark. Then he looked panicked.

"It was just a duff batch, that's all! I nicked it that first Potions lesson! That's why I wanted that batch you got off Slughorn: yours might have been better! I _did _mean it!" His tone heightened. "You can cast as many aspersions as you like Potter, you can't prove a thing!"

Harry stared, mouth forming an expression of disgusted disbelief.

"_Aspersions_? Only you could view _not_ being called a murderer as an insult! Well, cut it out because I _saw_ you start to lower your wand when the Professor offered to help you." And then came a surge of clarity. "You think I'll use it against you, don't you? You think I'll tell the Death Eaters that you were going to abandon them!"

Malfoy's fist closed around his wand, eyes glaring hotly, "Shut up, Potter."

Harry was past caring, "You're scared it'll get back to Voldemort and that he'll kill you and your family - like he said he would!"

"I said, _shut up_, Potter!"

"Oh for God's sake! If I was going to tell, I would have done it already!"

There was a silence. Harry could hear his own ragged breathing, he hoped he had gotten through to Malfoy. Had he?

"Of course you wouldn't have told already, Potter, not unless you were a fool. If you were attempting to blackmail me with secret information, then telling everyone about it would rather tend to scupper your plans, wouldn't it?" Malfoy sounded like a person who had given a lot of careful thought to the mechanics of blackmail. "Of course you wouldn't tell, Potter, not until you'd learned whether you had something you really could blackmail me with, and the only way to learn that would be by raising the matter with me when we next met in private … which is precisely what you've just done, isn't it?"

The logic was precision-tooled but the outcome was utterly wrong.

"I'm not -" Harry was appalled, "I'm not going to blackmail you! Look -" He cast about desperately, "I didn't tell anyone about you lowering your wand on the tower top. I knew I couldn't tell a soul. It would have got back to the Death Eaters somehow and you would have been killed by your own side!"

Malfoy blinked and his face went momentarily slack. Harry thought he might have made a break-through but then Malfoy seemed to recover. "Well then, sensibly I should kill you now, just to shut you up. I've already got the Ministry all over me, I don't need the Dark Lord too."

"You won't kill me." Harry's words came quickly but he told himself he wasn't alarmed … _Malfoy is not a killer_ … But then Malfoy had been through a lot recently and they had never been anything like friends.

"_Sectumsempra_ says I will, Potter." Malfoy's voice then shaded into an ugly anger, "I could have died on that bathroom floor, lying in a pool of other peoples' piss – any reason why I shouldn't try to return the favour?"

_Died on that bathroom floor, lying in a pool of other peoples' piss_ … Harry remembered what he had said at the Weasley Reception … _I nearly sliced Malfoy in two and had him bleed to death on a stinking, piss-covered, bathroom floor! _

"You think you're so bloody clever for infiltrating that wedding-reception, don't you?" Harry spat.

He saw a wintry smile twitch at the corners of Malfoy's mouth as Malfoy caught the chance to show off. "It was easy. Polyjuiced up as anyone, I got a few hairs off Dashwood, waited until he had his wedding invite and password, then jumped him and hit him with a Memory Charm."

The owl had begun to settle back on its perch, its ruffled feathers beginning to smooth.

"With you and the Polyjuice and Hermione with the love-potion, you're a right match – pity you can't stand each other." Harry painfully pulled himself upright and crossed his arms over his chest, he indicated the room about him with a jerk of his head, "Where are we?"

"Why should I tell you?" Malfoy looked about the room, "But it's mine, I own it. I am not without resources, Potter. I have this house, I have my own money."

"Don't kid me - your family finances were frozen, you've got nothing."

Malfoy simply sneered at Harry as though he knew something which Harry did not. Harry stared at him for a moment then muttered, "Gringotts special account! I should've known it. I bet you got it on the dot of your 17th birthday, before all that Death Eater stuff came out, didn't you?"

Malfoy took a bow as though smugly receiving applause.

His smirking grin pulled at his mouth again.

"That wedding-reception? Best show I've seen in years!" he snorted. "It was like the Funnnybones Elf-Panto, especially with Weasley's mum running around half-cut and wearing an absurd hat – Pure Widow Twankey. They should have a Weasley wedding every year to cheer us up. And the love potions thing? Wonderful! Hermione Granger, the prim and proper little Gryffindor Princess, revealed as a ruthless little love-potioner!"

"I don't get it - "

"Nothing new there."

"– why did you want to go to the wedding in the first place?"

A flurry of blinks chased across Malfoy's face, he went pink and then his face clouded into anger.

"What gives you the right to ask me anything! But that's typical of you, isn't it? You think you're so bloody special! That piece of snot, Creevey, simpering if you so much as say hello. Weasel-king carrying your bags for you. Granger having to do your homework." Malfoy's voice rose a notch, "And the Weasel's sister mooning after you for five years straight, prepared to 'make the ultimate sacrifice' if you so much as deigned to snap your fingers!"

Harry felt himself going red.

"Quit trying to wind me up, Malfoy." He lashed about for something that would get Malfoy on the back foot. "I don't see why you care about what happened with Ginny Weasley anyway! She says you fancied her – but I never noticed that you did!"

Malfoy went silent and then bright pink.

His words barreled out of him. "Maybe I rescued you because I needed more information on _Horcruxes_, Potter!"

Harry jolted to a halt in turn, his mouth open. Malfoy's opinions on Ginny Weasley suddenly seemed not worth pursuing.

Malfoy's expression was now a frozen mix of sneering victory – he'd finally got one over on 'Potter' – and a discomfort at having said more than he'd intended.

Harry tried to recover. "I don't know what you're talking about! I've never heard of Horcruxes!"

"Well, that'll be another thing Granger never told you about, because she has."

Harry's lies stopped in his throat. He stared at Malfoy, not daring to breathe, _Malfoy knew that Hermione knew about the Horcruxes? _

Still covering Harry, Malfoy's scrabbled about in his suit pocket, "Yep," he smirked, "Granger's got quite an interest in them." He pulled something out, it was a rolled-up sheet of parchment, bound tightly with a black ribbon.

Oh no … Harry had a horrible, sick feeling …

Grinning at Harry's expression, Malfoy caught the ribbon-end between his teeth and pulled, letting the tightly furled roll of parchment spring open in his hand. His voice bubbled with amusement, "It's very interesting, Potter – you should see what she wrote."

It was Hermione's parchment, the list she'd compiled.

"_Where is she?"_ Harry shouted.

Malfoy shrugged, "How should I know? He caught Harry's expression, "Oh pull yourself together Potter, the Death Eaters haven't got her."

Harry felt a sick lurch of relief and his eyes snapped to the piece of parchment again, remembering its contents. "I don't know what's on that!" His voice sounded high and unconvincing even to himself, "You don't even know it's hers – whatever it is. You don't even know it's important or anything to do with me or her!"

"Well, that might be vaguely convincing, Scarhead, if it wasn't for two things: I'd recognise that tight, clenched handwriting of hers anywhere and," he waggled the parchment, "I found it in her knicker-drawer at that dump, The Burrow."

"_What?"_ Harry was appalled.

"Oh, you look dreadful, Potter. Sure you don't want a drink?" Malfoy laughed, "I could get Granger to put something in it for you!"

Harry lurched forward to knock Malfoy's head off; Malfoy leveled his wand at him, the threat forcing Harry to a halt. "I found it when I went on a search of the Weasley hovel at the wedding - when I was using their bathroom. I ended up rooting through a drawer that clearly contained Granger's knickers seeing as that was where she's stuck this."

He indicated the parchment.

Harry remembered 'Francis Dashwood's' statement to Charlie Weasley that he wouldn't go rifling through the potions cabinet looking for embarrassing unguents … _"- much more likely to go rooting through the linen basket looking for embarrassing underwear!" _

He was momentarily livid.

"I see you couldn't stay out of Ginny Weasley's bedroom then!" Harry groped for Malfoy's underbelly. "So you do fancy her after all, eh? She boasted that she knew _and didn't care!_ And do you know something else? When I nearly chopped you in two with that Sectumsempra that time, all she said was that it a bloody good thing 'I had something good to use'! She didn't think twice about the fact that it nearly killed you. In fact, you were at that Reception. You _saw_ that she was fine with you being slashed in two!"

Malfoy had gone from pink to white, he looked as though he might actually punch Harry. Then he gave a wavering smirk as though to show that he was too cool to care. He changed the subject. "Well at least I can answer the 'grey, holey with withered elastic' versus 'pristine-white matching set' question on Granger's undies." His voice wavered slightly but steadied as he spoke and he affected a snorting disdain. "Do you know that girl has one bra actually held together by a safety-pin?"

Malfoy's voice was steadier now and he mockingly read from Hermione's scroll, aping a high, girlish voice. "My Horcrux List, by Hermione Granger, aged seventeen and three-quarters." He then became serious as his gaze swept over it, muttering almost to himself as he took in the salient points, "A cup and a locket, eh? How very interesting … Horcrux Deaths … Potential Horcruxes … Potential Places …" His eyebrows raised, "Can't say she doesn't lay it out clearly enough." He considered, "I wonder: deaths, Horcruxes, places – does that mean Horcruxes are things that kill you, but only in certain locations?"

Harry felt a flicker of hope: Malfoy did not know what Horcruxes were!

Malfoy smirked and his voice held a laugh, "Oooh here's an interesting bit - _Why is Draco Malfoy so much more exciting and sexy than either Harry or Ron? Malfoy's so much better-looking than any of the Dead Malfoys. Why is Ron such a lousy kisser? _Ahhh, bless her – look, she's even got my initials surrounded with little hearts and flowers."

"She _hasn't!"_

Malfoy laughed out loud now, still holding Harry off with his wand. "I was standing next to her at the Reception: she really gives Weasel-face _hell_, doesn't she? Not that he doesn't deserve it. Never a coupling that was a romance for the ages. Now they've gotten to it, I bet each secretly realises they don't fancy the other but neither wants to be the first to admit it." He snorted with derision, "I bet me rooting through her knickers was the most action those cotton gussets have ever seen."

He felt angry.

"Oh yeah? Interested in a bit yourself, are you?"

"_What?" _ Malfoy choked on a snort of purest outrage. "I – I – with _that_? I wouldn't be caught dead! – I -!" He was literally lost for words. "That bucktoothed, anxious little teacher's pet? She's got an expression like a question-mark and hair like unraveled knitting! Father would -" He forcibly gathered himself and then smirked at Harry, clearly relishing the impact of his next words far more than any philosophical connotations they had, "Not to mention the entire _Mudblood_ thing."

"Hoped you'd given up on that word – after the Professor told you it was rude."

For a second, Malfoy looked heated and ready to spit but forced himself to go back to scanning the list. "She's thorough, I'll give her that. At least you can follow her logic." His eyes traveled up and down the list and then stopped as he stared at something on it.

"What?" Harry leaned forward slightly – did Malfoy know something? Had he spotted something?

Malfoy narrowed his eyes, looking up at Harry with dislike. "Diary …" He offered it as an explanation, then followed it up quickly, "I wondered why they made such a big fuss of that little black book."

Harry panicked at the sudden realisation that Malfoy couldn't be allowed to know all this, it would get back to Voldemort, Malfoy would tell! "Put that list down, Malfoy. You don't know what you're dealing with!"

"Of course I know what I'm dealing with: Horcruxes. Well – I've heard of them, they were mentioned in a book I once got as a Christmas present: _Magic Moste Evil_. Apparently they are the _'wickedest of inventions'_, not that _Magic Moste Evil_ was exactly forthcoming with the details." Malfoy leveled his wand at Harry, "So, what are Horcruxes, Potter?"

Harry felt his mind go blank: he simply could not process this fast enough. Malfoy knew about the Horcruxes but didn't know what they were? He had Hermione's list but did not really understand what it was about? Could Harry simply keep his mouth shut and hope not to make it any worse?

"Potter, do you realise I can actually _see_ you thinking? It's like watching very slow clockwork."

Harry started. Malfoy had the list. Even if Harry managed to get the actual piece of parchment off Malfoy and somehow escape with it, then the knowledge of all that was still inside Malfoy's head.

"So, Potter, what are Horcruxes?" Malfoy waggled the list, "Come along, do tell."

Malfoy already knew too much.

So the only thing left to do, was to tell him everything else.

"Horcruxes are a way for a wizard to make himself immortal. A wizard makes them by murdering someone in cold blood – the murder splits off a bit of the killer's soul and then he somehow puts the broken-off bit in an object and the object is a 'Horcrux'. Anyway, because he's got a bit of his soul safe somewhere, he can't die." Harry delivered his words without emotion, just as straight fact. "Voldemort made six of them. Until they're destroyed he can't be killed. If they're not destroyed, he will live forever. Unless they're destroyed, he cannot be stopped and everything living and breathing will come under his tyranny for all eternity."

Malfoy's mouth hung open slightly. Harry found it surprisingly reminiscent of Malfoy's expression when Hermione had slapped him that time in third-year: when for a few seconds of silence, he and she had just stared at each other.

"I know Voldemort had six of them," continued Harry, determined to finish. "Well, six broken off bits and the bit of his soul still left inside that – that _body_ of his. Two have been destroyed: one by me – that diary thing – and one by Professor Dumbledore: a ring."

Harry found that his voice was almost metronomic now, he was talking automatically, without sentiment. "So there are four others. I'm not sure exactly what they are but I think that one's a locket that belonged to Salazar Slytherin, one's a cup that belonged to Helga Hufflepuff, one might be Nagini, and the other one we're not sure on, but it's probably something that belonged to Rowena Ravenclaw or maybe Godric Gryffindor, maybe it's the sword."

After a long silence, Malfoy's voice jolted with a nervous, half-laugh, "Well, you can say one thing for the Dark Lord: he's nothing if not choosy!"

Harry paused for a second but then persisted to his conclusion. "We don't know where he's got them hidden, but they're in places that are special to him."

After consideration, Malfoy's eyes then narrowed as he looked at Harry, "Why are you telling me all this?"

"Because if you chose to tell Voldemort what you already knew, then he'd collect the remaining Horcruxes and put them under extra guard. I'd never get them."

"So you're hoping that now I know how serious it all is, I'll keep my mouth shut?" Malfoy stared at Harry, for once his face was absolutely still. Harry could not tell what Malfoy was thinking. He felt impelled to continue.

"He'd try to kill me too, not that there's anything new there - but he'd also probably to try to kill Ron and Hermione, just for knowing as much as they do, Hermione especially."

Malfoy's head jerked slightly, but his expression remained impassive.

"Look," asked Harry, "are you going to tell him or not?" They both knew who 'he' was.

Malfoy said nothing.

"Malfoy, you have to help! This isn't just about you anymore! This is a lot bigger now!"

"Nothing's ever bigger than 'just about me', Potter. And _help _you? Don't be ridiculous. The Dark Lord is out to kill you, the Aurors are after you, you're impulsive, you're rash, you get even your _friends_ into terrible situations - not to mention the ever-present factor of: I Don't Like You."

"I – on the Aurors,I'll get articals published – I did it before and I was believed!"

"Don't be absurd. As soon as you break cover, they'll grab you and put 'Plan B' into action." Harry was puzzled. Malfoy clarified, "Plan B: bang you up in the St Mungos ward for the permanently baffled and brand you a nutter so that no-one believes a word you say!"

"But – Scrimgeour said he'd learned – that he knew he'd made mistakes but that he'd fix them!"

Malfoy's face was a picture of incredulity. "Potter, haven't you worked it out yet?" Harry was uncomprehending. "Potter," explained Malfoy, "_Scrimgeour murdered Madam Amelia Bones!"_

Harry's face went slack with shock.

"Amelia Bones' death is too convenient, Potter! It comes after the calls for Fudge's resignation but before the Ministry decides upon the new Minister. If she had lived, it would have been her, but she didn't live, did she? So who benefited from her death? Always look for motive, Potter - _who benefited from her death?_ Why did you think I was yelling, 'I know what you did', at Scrimgeour!_"_

Harry was shaking his head, resistant. Things could not have gotten that bad! But he remembered the newspaper reports of Madam Bones' death … _a nasty death, the room locked from the inside_ … And then he suddenly recalled Scrimgeour and his gammy leg. Reports had said that Madam Bones' home had been wrecked, there must have been quite a battle, she must have put up a real fight. Was that when Scrimgeour's leg had been injured?

"He killed her for a _job?"_

"Of course not! He probably did it because he thought she was too soft. He probably killed her because he thought he was better suited for the crucial role of war-time Minister than she was."

Harry was stunned. But what Malfoy said made a sort of sense. Harry recalled what Remus had said about Malfoy, that he was shrewd in a way that others were not. Off in a corner something caught his eye: the Hand of Glory that Malfoy had got from Borgin and Burkes, the one that gave light only to the holder. Harry knew that the Hand gave Malfoy an ability which Harry did not have: he could see in the dark.

"Join me. Join the Order."

"Oh, please!" Malfoy scoffed, "Not only would they not have me - "

"They would!" Harry desperately recalled Remus – Remus was in the Order.

"- but I wouldn't have them!"

Harry blinked.

Malfoy carried on. "Your side don't have what it takes to win! They were getting thrashed at the end of the last war – Scrimgeour was right about that part. It was only that – that _thing_ with you and your mother that saw matters change. For heaven's sake, the 'good guys' managed to lose Ollivander straight off! He was an obvious target – without a wand there is no wizard, wands are that important – but he wasn't even protected!

"Are you saying Ollivander was _kidnapped_ by the Death Eaters?"

"Kidnapped, Imperiused into making a new wand for the Dark Lord, and then killed! So guess what, Potter? The next time you get into a duel with the Dark Lord, having the exact-same wand core won't be what saves you!"

Malfoy's take on things was making Harry's head swirl, he had to hold on to what mattered. "Just join sides with me – you're not a killer."

"Oh shut up. How do you know I'm not?" Malfoy's voice rose to a cracked kind of laugh, "By the end of this, I bet I'll have killed _someone!"_

Harry flinched, then recovered. "The Death Eaters were only on the tower because of you! Don't you think you owe everyone something in return?"

"I -" Malfoy sounded actually uncertain but then rallied explosively. "Oh for God's sake, Dumbledore looked half-dead already! He looked like he'd been poisoned. If they'd waited five minutes, I bet he would have died anyway!"

Harry felt something in him freeze. Almost as a protective reaction he blew his temper.

"Yeah, I can see that none of it was your fault! Because you're so bloody good at choices! The Death Eaters are a great choice. All you have to do is to crawl on your belly to Voldemort and kiss his robes, say 'thank you' when he hurts you, and call him Master. But that's okay because you've had the practice – a lifetime of groveling around after your dad, doing everything he does, saying everything he says, parroting anything he tells you no matter how stupid. You used to be your dad's puppet, _all you did was swap him for Voldemort!" _

In the next fifteen seconds, Harry learned what the phrase 'deafening silence' really meant, and knew that if he wanted Malfoy on-side, then he'd just made a terrible error.

"Get out."

"Look, Malfoy, I - "

"_Get OUT!"_

Malfoy raised his wand and pointed it at Harry, it trembled in his too-tense grip. Without taking his eyes off him or deviating his aim, Malfoy felt blindly about on a table-top, found a box there, opened it, and quickly inspected the contents.

A pencil hurtled through the air at Harry who, with his Seeker's reflexes, automatically caught it, snatching it out of mid-air. He looked at it blankly – _was Malfoy actually proposing that they duel, wand versus pencil?_

Holding his wand on Harry, Malfoy felt about on the table top for another object and Harry abruptly jerked to now see a wand hurtling at him. He caught it uncomprehendingly, still holding the pencil in the other hand. Malfoy had armed him, _did he intend this to be a wizard's duel after all?_

Malfoy's voice was chill and still. "Bye-bye, Potter. Wand should work a bit for you – the wood's holly." Holly was the wood of Harry's own missing wand. "Lord only knows what the core of it is. Seeing as it's an old one of Crabbe's it's probably Hair of Troll." He laughed as though at a private joke and then looked at Harry and his laugh switched off. "When you leave, it's one-time, one-way."

Harry looked at him blankly. Leave? Was Malfoy expecting him to Apparate with a dodgy wand? That was so dangerous, Malfoy might as well just kill him outright!

Malfoy was vexed at Harry's incomprehension. "Potter, you're an annoying git and as we already know, I could quite happily stamp on your face - but I'm letting you go."

Now Harry did look staggered.

"It's _contingency_, Potter. If I let you live and your side actually wins – you are Prophecy Boy, if anyone's got a chance I suppose it's you – then you can vouch for me. I'll be the person who didn't hand you over to the Death Eaters, my family and I will be protected – and that's the bit that matters to me. On the other hand, if your side loses, hey – I'm still a Death Eater, and it was just unfortunate about that time I had you in my power and you escaped me."

Harry tried to keep the wobble out of his voice. "So – so you're not giving me to Voldemort?"

"Well I couldn't, could I?" Malfoy sounded as though he thought Harry was amazingly stupid. "How could I take you to him? You'd just tell him about me lowering my wand on the tower-top, preparing to defect from him. I've only got two choices right now: kill you or let you go. And if I killed you and your side still managed to win, well then, that's my family finished. Chances are that Voldemort'll never find out about tonight: Scrimgeour's Obliviated everyone, and him and the Aurors aren't going to leak it – they'd be scared of it getting out about how they'd tried to grab you."

Harry's tired mind struggled with Malfoy's convoluted logic, then the important part struck him.

"Malfoy – don't tell Voldemort about the Horcruxes! Don't -"

Malfoy's expression was caught between the disgusted and the exasperated. "You really don't think too much through, do you?" Then his expression shifted into something bitter, "And make sure Ginny Weasley, stays at Hogwarts, won't you?" He gave a truly ugly sneer. "The Dark Lord can actually _read_, you know. He does get the _Daily Prophet_. Harry Potter's Girlfriend is a pretty solid target. Oh, and Potter? Seeing as you're almost certainly too thick to think it through, let me explain: the Aurors don't know where to find you, keep it that way."

"Malfoy! Switch sides! You're not a killer! You used the Felicis and it backfired against you – it gave you what you really wanted, it -"

But Malfoy waved in a taunting mock-farewell, and whilst Harry was still yelling –

That annoying tugging sensation behind the navel and Harry, still clutching the Portkey pencil, was swept away on another journey … a short whirlwind and then –

He landed, half-staggering, in a dingy night-time side-street in a run down part of London.

And wanted to roar in frustration.

_Why hadn't he just made a better job of it back there with Malfoy?_

If he'd had more time he could have convinced Malfoy, he could have pulled him back around! And now Malfoy was out there with Hermione's list and with all that Harry had told him, and Harry did not know what Malfoy was going to do! Malfoy even had Felicis – okay, only a tiny lick of it, but it might be enough for just one last shot of blinding luck! Who knew what he'd use it for or how it would work out next time round?

Harry tried to pull himself together, trying to tell himself he'd done the right thing in telling Malfoy about the Horcruxes but he suddenly felt very tired. At that, he twitched: the Aurors would be searching for him, he needed to get under cover! He looked up at the closed shop he was huddled against, it was a _McNucky Chicken_ take-away, one of a national chain which ran very annoying television-ads featuring a seven-foot-tall cartoon chicken: _Clucky McNucky_. Harry had always felt sorry for those poor souls who had to earn a living wearing a head-to-toe Clucky McNucky costume, giving away McNucky 'special offer' leaflets on the street.

A minute later he was in the shop and sinking down behind the counter, sore all over and exhausted. What could he do now? He had a wand and Apparition was technically possible, but where could he go even if he could Apparate? The Burrow? Useless. Privet Drive? Risky. He wasn't sure he could get into Grimmauld Place and as for Hermione … he did not even know where Hermione's family lived. He'd never bothered to visit, even though she'd stuck by him through thick and thin for years on end.

Annoyed, he found a Muggle newspaper. It was today's, Friday's, school would start tomorrow.

Harry scanned the news by the light of _Lumos,_ looking for any sign of the Death Eaters. There were the usual articals about British Rail being late and the silly season stuff: a woman had seen an England World Cup victory predicted in the contents of a bag of crisps, _Nostradamus The Cat_ made his predictions on the next General Election, and a woman swore that she had seen a recently dead rock-star walking down Marlborough High Street – _Rick Hagger Lives!_ Harry shook his head, next they'd be saying Elvis was alive - again. There was nothing in it that seemed a precursor of Death Eater Doom.

Muscles creaking and sore, he shifted uncomfortably and then could have kicked himself. Why hadn't he rammed home the point, that at the wedding-reception he had clearly been furious at Ginny Weasley for lauding his use of _Sectumsempra_? Malfoy had been potioned-up as Dashwood, sure, but he'd been standing right there. Didn't that count as a sort of apology from him to Malfoy? And it wasn't as though Malfoy had been left with any scars. Snape had used Dittany – Malfoy's face looked perfectly okay now!

Thinking back to 'Dashwood' at the Reception, Malfoy had looked very hurt at finding out that Ginny Weasley had given no thought to Harry nearly slashing him in two.

Malfoy didn't have a crush on Ginny Weasley after all, did he? It was absurd – Malfoy didn't even know her!

Despite his tumultuous thoughts, Harry grew drowsy even though he was afraid of falling asleep. But as much as he tried to keep awake, sleep continually crept up on him. And then the thought drifted through his mind: _why hadn't Malfoy been able to see those Thestrals?_

At that, Harry was wide awake.

Draco Malfoy had seen death, Harry knew it. Malfoy had been on the tower-top when Snape had murdered the Professor. Malfoy had seen Professor Dumbledore die. He must have done: the Professor had already been dead when he had toppled from the tower, he had to be because the Avada Kedavra was instant – that was one of the things they had always been taught about it.

Professor Dumbledore was dead: Harry had held the Professor's body where it lay battered by the fall, Dumbledore's painting had even come into existence in the Head's Office, that wasn't possible unless the Professor was dead! Yet it had undoubtedly been Malfoy struggling blindly against the Thestrals … It had definitely been the real Malfoy on that tower-top too, not someone Polyjuiced as him …

So why couldn't Malfoy see Thestrals?


	14. Chapter 14

Title: (Chapter 14)   
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Chapter 14 **

It was Kings Cross Station a little before 11 o'clock on a Saturday morning and, as Molly Weasley was fond of saying, the place was 'packed with Muggles'.

It was also packed with wizard parents who were escorting their children to Platform Nine and Three-quarters, from where the children would get on a train to go to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Parents and children sidled up to the barrier between Platforms Nine and Ten and, after a quick check that no Muggle was looking, walked quickly through it as though it were an open door. On the other side they would emerge onto a bustling platform thronged with children, luggage and pets. Porters would be blowing whistles and steam would be billowing, and the magnificent red Hogwarts Express would be readying to go.

On the Muggle side of the barrier that colourful scene went completely unknown. The Muggles went about their Saturday business as usual, ignoring each other so much that each might have been invisible. Even the seven-foot-tall _Clucky McNucky_ squawking around and making a desultory effort to hand out 'McNucky Chicken' fliers, went largely un-acknowledged.

The Aurors covertly surveying the barrier stiffened to attention when a short, plump wizard mother bustled past, scuttling like an angry pigeon. She dragged her unwilling-looking daughter after her, the mother's shrill voice carrying above the noise of the station … '_Lucky there isn't any press about! You're going whether you like it or not …_ _if you're worried about what people might say, you should've thought of that before you started all this … And now I've got Ron and Harry deciding to go to the Ministry and who can blame Harry with that Granger girl. Honestly! Calling us all prejudiced like that! … And now Bill's off gallivanting on his honeymoon, Charlie's off with those dragons of his and George is back with that common little shopgirl. At least Fred is still with Tanit, a girl from a solid wizarding family!'_

Various wizard children – mostly girls – craned their necks to look at the mother and her stiff-backed daughter. Whispers broke out among them … _There's Ginny Weasley … Ginny Weasley … Ginny Weasley … _

Ginny stiffened under the scrutiny but held her chin up. In contrast, Molly Weasley didn't seem to notice the attention. She swept herself and her daughter through the barrier almost heedless of whether any Muggles saw them, after all, they were only Muggles, they could always be Obliviated.

At Kings Cross station, Molly Weasley took the first step through the barrier between the two very different worlds; her daughter followed shortly after.

Away across the station forecourt, the Clucky McNucky chicken started squawking again.

Minutes later, a voice hissed out of thin air next to it.

"Bloody Norah, Harry, will you cut out that squawking? I've been worried sick about you. I thought Malfoy had taken you to the Death Eaters!"

The chicken abruptly silenced in mid-squawk, _"Ron?"_

In under a minute, Harry was struggling out of his chicken costume in the station's Muggle toilet. Ron, shedding the Invisibility Cloak, was explaining where he'd been.

"I found that note that mad aunty of yours sent you – the one you threw in the bin. It said about Scrimgeour coming to Privet Drive and behaving dodgy, that's why she didn't want you back there. Anyway, I thought Privet Drive was the last place anyone would look for me and that you might go back there anyway. So I land there, and your aunt snatches me into the house! Then she screeches at me for getting mud on the carpets but she hides me anyway – in the garden shed! She's a right weirdo! She's got a real fixation about Azkaban – keeps going on about stuff she overheard about it once from some 'awful boy'."

Harry was so relieved that he never even reacted to the report of Petunia's insult against his father..

"Anyway," continued Ron, "I came to the station knowing that if you wanted to get to Hogwarts, you'd have to go by train. God, what _happened_ to you? I thought you were a goner!"

Harry quickly explained how they'd landed in an empty house. He glossed over how he had subsequently 'escaped' from there via Portkey.

"What, no Death Eaters as a greeting-party?" Ron was astounded. "But let's face it, the Malfoys aren't exactly Lord Thingie's favourites right now. The attack on Hogwarts is a right muck-up. Lucius Malfoy loses the diary and then the Ministry mess. No wonder Draco Malfoy didn't want to land back at Death Eater central!"

Harry took in a breath – was this an opportunity to explain how Draco Malfoy was motivated by his family and to explain about Malfoy on the tower-top? But Ron carried on, "The Malfoy's are in real trouble and it serves them right. Malfoy let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts: the Professor got killed, Bill got scarred, Malfoy deserves to pay for that."

Harry said nothing. Ron had a point and for all Harry knew, Malfoy could be telling Voldemort everything right now.

Harry brightened, "Hey – but I can get Hedwig back!"

"Er …"

"She'll be useful for messages!"

"Well -" Ron was now looking away from Harry. "Well, maybe we should wait till we have somewhere to stay, y'know? And besides, right now we haven't got anyone to send a message to!"

Ron looked Harry up and down as he stood there, grubby and battered. Half-laughing, he rustled in his bag, "Put this on, or you'll scare the kids."

Harry was so delighted to be handed back his dad's old Invisibility Cloak that he forgot about the issue of Hedwig. He looked at Ron who was still holding another Cloak - _whose?_

"Moody's - I managed to nab it from The Burrow when I escaped from the Aurors." Ron quickly looked away again, "Er … it's a spare. He - er … he doesn't need it anymore …"

Forcing his way out of his chicken-suit, Harry knew he must tell Ron one of the worst things of all: Malfoy's suspicions on Scrimgeour. He was worried how Ron might take the mention of Malfoy, so he simply recounting the timeline Malfoy had laid out as though he'd thought of it himself. "So … what do you think, Ron? I know it's a bit unlikely seeing as he's an Auror, but d'you think Scrimgeour's a killer?"

"Er – do you mean him personally?" Harry saw Ron stare at him. It was a few seconds before Ron spoke, as though he was wondering precisely what to say. "Dunno, but we know the Aurors can't be trusted, that's a fact. _Always_ keep your guard up on them." Ron sounded very firm on that, even though he looked away from Harry as he said it.

Ron fished in his knapsack and hauled out the faux-locket, the defunct ring, the Marauders' Map and revealed that he had been carrying Harry's broom hidden beneath his Cloak.

Harry nearly whooped with joy but managed to stifle the cry – it wouldn't do to alert the Aurors to any strange goings-on in the men's' toilets.

He leapt again when Ron fished Harry's wand out of his knapsack; he reached for it like a drowning man snatching for a rope.

"How about asking your dad for help?" he asked, brightly.

"Nope," Ron suddenly sounded hard and business-like. "Mum and Dad got Obliviated by the Aurors who fixed the window and everything. They cooked up some story about me and you at the Ministry. Dad might be cool if I told him the truth, but Mum would blow the gaff the moment she saw me, and Dad could never keep it from her."

Harry could not find it within himself to genuinely disagree. Harry liked Mrs. Weasley – well, she was Ron's mum, he'd never really been in a position to _dis-_like her - but sometimes she was a bit much.

"Anyhow," Ron straightened, "the point is to keep the entire Horcrux thing secret, right?"

… _keep the entire Horcrux thing secret …_

_Except for the fact that I just blabbed everything to Malfoy!_

"Two minutes to eleven," said Ron. "Better get on with it I suppose."

Within one minute they were through the barrier – each hiding under an Invisibility Cloak and carrying their few belongings. Harry scouted about him: he glanced about for Mrs. Weasley but he couldn't see her. She had left when Harry had been getting changed.

Still invisible, they jumped aboard the baggage compartment and within seconds porters slammed the door shut behind them. From outside there was a chorus of blowing whistles, then the chuff-chuff-chuff-CHUFF of the steam engine. The mighty wheels span for a second, then bit on the steel rails and the carriages all lurched forward as one, rattling into one another with a jarring thump, and then … they were off, with the train picking up speed along the tracks.

In the security of the luggage van, both boys had de-Cloaked.

"Harry?"

"Yeah?" Harry looked up, startled.

Ron was looking at him sideways, his nose wrinkling, "No offense mate, but from that chicken suit thing? You _really_ need a bath."

X X X 

Harry found it very strange to be sneaking down the train when he was so used to walking along it openly. Like everyone else, he was almost subliminally tense at the thought of Death Eaters attacking the transport, but he squashed down his fears. He had to concentrate on destroying the Horcruxes.

In the luggage van, Harry had given himself a quick _Scourgify_: as Ron had only half-joked, there was no point in lurking about under cover of Invisibility Cloak if people could _smell_ that he was there!

He'd ditched his grimy clothes in favour of fresh ones from Justin Finch-Fletchley's capacious and well-stocked trunk – Justin's family was very wealthy, Justin wouldn't miss a few bits. They had transfigured a pair of Justin's trainers to fit Harry, and he had taken a few changes of clothes too and packed them in a small knapsack of Justin's.

After Harry had changed, Ron had uncomfortably looked down at his shoes then up at Harry again, "Wanna go look along the train? You know … just to see who we can see?" He looked hopeful, "We'll be invisible …?"

Harry had known that Ron was secretly thinking about Hermione.

Harry said nothing. He was angry at her but it seemed stupid for the three of them to split up at a time like this …

Five minutes later he and Ron were moving down the corridor, each under cover of Cloak.

Harry thought that there were notably fewer children on the train than on previous journeys. After the attack on Hogwarts, many parents had obviously decided that it was not the redoubt it had been. However, although hundreds had been kept at home, the school had about a thousand pupils, so even a few hundred less still made for a pretty packed train as the Express sped north. The colours of the school scarves told the mix: lots of Gryffindors, what looked to be about only half the Ravenclaws, not many Slytherins but seemingly almost all of the Hufflepuffs.

Harry was surprised to see that Mrs. Figg was on the train, with her Kneazle, Mr. Tibbles. He could hear her talking about her new job at Hogwarts: helping care for pets. "I'm a teaching assistant in Small Animal Care," she nodded proudly.

Harry had been quite surprised to find that Mrs. Figg was a Squib and that the 'cats' she had in her house weren't cats at all: she had been a Kneazle-breeder. Harry guessed that bringing Mrs. Figg to Hogwarts was secretly Professor McGonagall's way of protecting Mrs. Figg who, as a Squib, was powerless and defenceless but who had still risked herself by giving years of faithful service to the Order. The safest place for her was the redoubt of Hogwarts.

Harry remembered that it was the only place that had held out in the first war; it remained to be seen how its residents would acquit themselves in the second one.

Mr. Tibbles sat watchfully beside Mrs. Figg; with his black and white markings, Harry thought he looked like he was wearing a tuxedo. He turned to the patch of air where he knew Ron was and jokingly whispered, "Mr. Tibbles, the James Bond of Kneazles."

"James _who?"_

As they traveled down the train, they saw that the newspaper love potion revelations hadn't seemed to have put anyone off their Pygmy Puffs, despite that they were associated with - _style-setter Ginny!_

The pink and purple furballs were dotted all over the place.

"Can't think why anyone wants one," muttered Ron, "what are they for? They don't seem to do anything apart from squeak!"

"And they bite," reminded Harry, recalling Gabrielle's finger.

Pet cats, traveling with their Hogwarts' owners, were gazing after any passing furball. None of the cats seemed to like the shrill, fluffy little powderpuffs and Harry witnessed several near-'accidents' involving lunging pet cats and squeaking Puffs. As they entered the Slytherin carriage, Harry noticed that Millicent Bulstrode's cat - black with a squashed-looking face - was batting angrily against the corridor window pane, trying to get at a Pygmy Puff in a passing girl's bag.

"If the cats ever get a free run at these Pygmy Puffs," Ron muttered, "mark my words: there'll be a war on at Hogwarts."

They had passed through the Slytherin carriages first. The returning Slytherins were the most under-represented of the Houses and there seemed few who had returned in Harry's year. Malfoy obviously hadn't, and neither had Blaise Zabini. But Millicent Bulstrode had come back – she was supervising a compartment of younger children – and Adrian Pucey, a boy in their year, patrolled the corridor keeping the younger Slytherins under control.

Slughorn was there, holding sway over his latest incarnation of the Slug Club. Harry could hear their conversation through the shut compartment door.

"Honestly, Sir! Love potioning! It's in all the papers. Hermione Granger was too used to breaking the rules and being awarded House Points for it!" The speaker was a girl Harry recognised as Melinda Bobbins. "As for Ginny Weasley – well, talk about fame going to her head! Strutting about, holding court! And all the time he was being dosed _and she knew it!"_

"Didn't Ginny Weasley used to be in our club, Sir?" The slyly-voiced question came from a young, dark-haired boy over by the window.

"Yes, Hinchley, but -" Slughorn harrumphed, obviously embarrassed, "but I did drop her though."

"Why, Sir?" That was Hinchley again.

"Er … why …?" Slughorn went red but then he looked up and sounded genuinely puzzled. "Do you know, I can't think why I invited her into the Club in the first place? It was on this very train. I remember seeing her shoot a hex at Zacharias Smith, and then I went to tell her off, and then … then I invited her into the Club! Heavens! Can't think what came over me! For a while there, I found her quite enchanting."

"I expect she put a spell on you, Sir!" laughed another boy.

"Come, now," Slughorn's fruity voice drifted over the now-giggling group, "simmer down. Nothing official has been decided concerning the potioning incident and one of the young ladies _is_ now our Head Girl."

At that mention of Hermione, some of the Club swapped sly looks and Hinchley piped up. "Sir? About Granger … they really can't keep her as Head Girl, can they? Not after all this?"

Ron took a sharp breath, "I'm not listening to any more of this!"

Amazingly, the next compartment held Crabbe and Goyle: huge hulking brutes with long arms, short legs and low brows. They looked like pictures you might see of Neanderthal-Wizard, all they needed was a stone club each to complete the picture. They sat alone, looking somewhat gum, surrounded by discarded sweet wrappers.

They looked rather odd alone. For the last six years each had effectively acted as bodyguard-come-servant to Draco Malfoy. Harry had once thought of them as 'created to do his bidding'. Harry could not recall ever addressing a single word to either of them, though from what he could tell as their conversation seemed to consist solely of grunts, squeaks and cackles, he didn't suppose he'd missed much. He had never admitted it, but sometimes Harry had wondered just why the mouthy, sarcastic Malfoy had ever put up with them as friends.

He had to admit now though that they looked rather sad without Malfoy. Like two big dumb dogs who had been locked in the yard, unable to understand why they had been abandoned.

Ron interrupted his thoughts. "Can you believe those two? Look at them! They look like something you'd meet under a bridge – if you were unlucky! Why couldn't they bog off with that prat, Malfoy? I mean, when you get right down to it, he's as thick as they are!"

Ron shifted next to Harry, confiding. "Remember when you were really impressed when a group of us escaped the Inquisition Squad that time in Umbridge's office? But it was easy! Malfoy got cocky, strolled over and then actually _dropped_ our wands – can you believe it? As though he didn't understand how important they were in a fight! After a scramble, it was just a straight shoot-out. Malfoy couldn't guard so much as a fairy-cake, well, not if Crabbe or Goyle caught sight of it!"

Lagging slightly behind as they hurried on, it was Harry who heard whispered gossip about Pansy Parkinson. "She was really mad for Draco and had been for years but he wasn't mad for her, we could all see that. We all knew who _he_ wanted." Harry uncomfortably sensed that the gossiping Slytherin girls meant Ginny Weasley – "Although he'd find a way to deny it even under Veritaserum!"

As they passed a crowded Gryffindor compartment, Harry's spirits sank as he heard kids hooting with laughter, quoting from the _Daily Prophet_ on the _'Harry Potter Love Potion Scandal!'_

"_Pureblood Ginny must share the same House with Muggleborn Granger – knowing that Granger used her as part of the Muggleborn's plans to control Harry."_ There was a gale of laughter – "Used her?" yelped one boy, "that Weasley girl was loving every minute!"

"And get this," yelped another boy. _"Granger coldly set about potioning Harry at Hogwarts in a campaign designed to bring him under her influence … Dolores Umbridge, Ex-Head of Hogwarts, and now Junior-Under-Under-Under-Under Secretary of the Department International Muggle Trading Standards, Cauldron-Measuring Sub-section, commented that Granger had a history of manipulation and rule-breaking!" _

Harry slumped. At least Rita had skittered out after Hermione had confessed about potioning him at Hogwarts, but before they'd had those blistering rows, when he'd been blamed for this and that. At least Rita didn't have the ammunition of Hermione's utterly nonsensical accusations!

Colin Creevey spoke up, clearing his throat as though about to make an important announcement, "I have an offer to work as a cub reporter for they _Daily Prophet_. Mr. Cuffe, the editor -" Harry could hardly help noticing that Colin pronounced 'Mr. Cuffe' the way he used to pronounce 'Harry Potter', "- met me at the Weasley wedding. Mr. Cuffe says he's always on the look out for useful people."

"Sure, people who can get news about Ginny Weasley," snorted a boy.

Colin sniffed, "Well, yes." He sounded rather uncertain, but then recovered. "But it's not like she deserves any loyalty. Why should I keep her secrets?"

Neville, Seamus and Dean shared a compartment. "No wonder I couldn't believe my luck that _Ginny Weasley_ fancied me." Dean sounded miserable. "I bet her going out with me was only ever about her showing off to Harry Potter."

Harry couldn't think what shocked him more: Dean's utterly defeated tone or the fact that Dean had called him 'Potter'. Did Dean partly blame him for what had happened?

Neville broke in. "Ginny used Harry like she used you, Dean."

"Oh come off it. You're sticking up for her because you fancied her when you took her to that Yule Ball in fourth-year!" Seamus glared at Neville.

"Since when has 'Ginny used Harry like she used you, Dean', been 'sticking up for her'?"

"Do you think Hermione will be expelled?" Dean interjected in a dull, quiet tone.

Harry's gaze twitched to Dean. _Expelled? Where the hell had that come from? _

"I hope so!" Seamus stormed, "All the hundreds of housepoints she lost for us over the years!"

"Well I didn't see anyone turning down all the thousands she won," remarked Neville. "I hope Hermione doesn't get expelled. My Gran says it'd be a disgrace, ripping a wand off a girl over a thing like that at a time like this." Neville stood up, "Well, I'm going for a walk-about – make sure everyone's alright."

He left the compartment, with Seamus glaring after him and Dean staring morosely out of the window.

There was a flurry of girls sharing a compartment, squealing over cards, posters and t-shirts of the_ Drop Dead Malfoys_. "Have you heard the _Deads'_ latest! It's in honour of Harry and Ginny! It's a modern love-song. It's based on some Muggle dance-tune. It's called - 'Dose My Snitch Up!"

The girls howled with laughter.

Harry really didn't need to hear any of this and he knew that Ron – right next to him - was increasingly on edge too.

The girls were still laughing helplessly. "I bet Weasley had 'lucky knickers'. Probably didn't take them off for months on end in case 'today was the lucky day'. No wonder some of the boys thought she smelled unusual: so would you if you didn't change your knickers for months on end!"

Ron strode off.

"About the only good thing I can say for the _Dead Malfoys_," he hissed, "is that Malfoy isn't making a penny off them!"

There was no respite though, hurrying down the train they simply came across a compartment containing Romilda Vane and some other Gryffindor girls.

"Do you still fancy your chances with him Romilda?"

All the girls watched Romilda. They all knew she had tried to dose Harry just as much as Hermione had. Romilda looked back at them, there were seconds of silence and then … all the girls burst out laughing.

"I think my chances are bugger all!" laughed Romilda. "In fact, I don't even fancy him any more." The other girls scoffed. "No, really - I can't think why I ever did. I can't think why I was suddenly mad for him. For one thing, I like my boys a lot more easy-going than Potter! Now – that tall mate of his with the big hands … you know what they say - big hands, big feet, _big …?"_

Harry felt Ron start next to him.

"I knew something was weird when you actually tried-out for Quidditch!" laughed one of the girls. "_You _and _sports_? There was definitely something up there! Are you sure you didn't come over all funny last year? You actually _joined_ the Gobstones team!"

Ron turned and stormed off, "Great – now I can't even think about Gobstones the same way again!"

Moving along the train, they entered the last carriage which contained the Prefects' compartment.

They were now in a very quiet part of the train. Harry was aware that there were people he had not yet seen: Hermione herself for one, plus – and he was annoyed at realising he knew this - Ginny Weasley's vivid red hair had not yet been spotted and there was also … Harry tensed … Luna Lovegood.

For all that Luna had annoyed him last time they had talked, he was worried. She was one of the only two who had answered the call of the D.A. coins in the Tower fight; she and Neville were the only ones who hadn't given up on what the D.A. was really all about. She would never desert Hogwarts. _So if she wasn't on the train_ …

It was with a jolt that he saw both Luna and Neville sitting in the very next compartment.

At the sight he was instantly caught between a resentful annoyance – _I like Neville, he's very kind_ – and a gushing relief. Harry thought that Luna Lovegood could be deeply annoying and very strange but despite everything …

It took a split second for Harry to note that she and Neville shared the compartment with a tall, thin, stringy-looking boy whom, after a confused second, Harry recalled as the Slytherin who had seen the Thestrals that time in Hagrid's C.O.M.C. lesson: Theodore Nott.

Harry gawped - _Theodore Nott was the son of a Death Eater! Did Neville and Luna not know that?_

Ron moved on slightly but Harry found that he was rooted to the spot.

Unlike him, instead of being tense about Nott, was Luna sitting there, calmly reading _The_ _Quibbler _the right way up - evidently she hadn't completed the quiz yet. Her dark-blond, waist-length hair flowed about her and she lifted a frond and absently hooked it behind her ear as she scanned the page, blinking slowly as she read. Harry noticed that her fingers were stained with ink. He thought her Butterbeer necklace seemed to have grown in length, she'd obviously added a few more corks. He wondered if any were from the wedding … ? Then he shot a ferocious glare at Nott again.

Harry was relieved to note that Neville at least looked rather more wary in Nott's company than Luna did. He saw Neville shoot Nott covert looks - hardly surprising considering what had happened to Neville's parents: tortured to insanity by Bellatrix Black. It had to be admitted though that Nott – for someone planning acts of unspeakable evil – seemed rather more keen on pretending as though Neville and Luna weren't actually there; he stubbornly had his nose buried in a book: _Very, Very, Very Advanced Arithmancy – an Art or a Science?_

There was a fist-sized chunk of polished glass on the seat next to Nott: wedge-shaped, a bit like a see-through block of cheese. Harry was prepared to bet anything that it was some Dark Object of horrid evil – well, at least something you wouldn't want to be on the wrong end of a fight.

"Thank you for letting us share your compartment."

Harry jumped at the sound of Luna's voice, her light tone carried clearly as she addressed the stringy-looking boy – "We came up to sit with Ginny next door, but she didn't want any company."

Harry took a glimpse into the next compartment and saw Ginny sitting alone, face grim, arms folded, legs crossed tight. She had obviously heard the gossip about her which was flying up and down the train. The only company she had now was Arnold the Pygmy-Puff and even Arnold seemed more interested in staring out the window than in comforting Ginny.

Glowering and stubborn-faced, she looked about as romantic as a kick in the nuts.

Harry abruptly found himself wondering whether Malfoy really fancied her? How? _Why? _Malfoy didn't even _know_ Ginny Weasley! Harry could only ever recall Malfoy saying about ten words to her. Malfoy just had a pathetic crush on a girl he didn't know!

Harry shifted back to watch Luna and the others.

"You're Theodore Nott, aren't you?" enquired Luna.

The stringy boy crossed his arms and looked as though the mad girl wearing the Butterbeer necklace might bite.

Harry wanted to smack him, but then recalled his even ruder response to Luna's first 'hello'.

"This is Neville Longbottom," Luna continued, making the introductions, "and I'm Luna Lovegood."

"Yeah, well, I'm the son of a jailed Death Eater," Nott's voice was flat and quick. "You remember them? Those people who tried to kill you both in the Department of Mysteries?"

"So, do you live with your mother as your father is in jail?" Luna enquired peacefully.

Harry saw Theodore Nott blink, he was obviously expecting – or had learned to expect – a very different response to his bitter defensiveness. His mouth moved soundlessly, then he found his voice again, although it was a sullen tone. "My mother's dead, she died when I was young."

"Oh, so did mine," said Luna, completely without melodrama. She reached into her pocket, "Would you like some chocolate?" she offered a block of Honeydukes Best.

The stringy boy blinked again and opened his mouth, but then closed it and almost despite himself reached out and accepted a piece. Luna beamed and then offered a piece to Neville, who likewise uncomfortably took it. Luna went back to reading _The Quibbler_ as both boys chewed on big lumps of chocolate, each eyeing the other with a mixture of suspicion, distaste and yet … with Nott's gaze almost unwillingly communicating the query to Neville, _is she always like this?_

"Is that a – what are they called – a prisum, that you have with you?" Luna indicated the glass wedge on the seat next to Nott. "They're Muggle, aren't they?"

"So? Not against the law, is it?" Then the defensive Nott seemed to remember his manners and coughed. "I thought it might be useful," – in response, Neville looked questioning, "well, it's light rays – a prism refracts them, doesn't it? Spreads them out. I was wondering about …"

Nott faltered to a halt, but Luna smiled and offered him another piece of chocolate.

Harry felt a small smile tug at the corners of his mouth: Luna Lovegood could say the most uncomfortable things, yet she would extend the hand of friendship to almost anyone.

She could be deeply annoying and frustrating, at times she could be downright bizarre, but she could also speak truths that no-one else would.

She had offered to kiss Harry once, under the mistletoe in the Room of Requirement: Harry had instinctively reeled away. He blinked and shifted uncomfortably in the corridor. He still wasn't sure he wouldn't do the same now … well, he might do – or he might not do – or -

He heard Ron shuffle next to him and looked up the corridor to see the Prefects appearing from their compartment, obviously the Prefects' meeting had broken up. Bringing up the rear, alone, chin in the air and defensively prig-faced, Hermione came down the corridor.

It was the first time Harry had seen her since the Reception and his anger surged to the fore. Five years of friendship and then she'd drugged him? Not to mention accused him of all sorts. And she'd made that stupid list which Malfoy had found. What he wouldn't say to her!

But he didn't find out what he would have actually said because she disappeared into the compartment occupied by Ginny Weasley.

"Bugger!" hissed Ron. "We can't talk to her now!"

Harry felt Ron brush past him, both boys moving to see Hermione. Harry saw the two girls view each other frostily; they were clearly only sitting with each other because they couldn't sit with anyone else. It was only seconds before an argument broke out: Hermione had brought Crookshanks' basket and he was hissing and stretching a paw through the mesh door, trying to swipe the annoying, squeaking Arnold.

Even if he was angry at Hermione, Harry found that he retained an awful lot of respect for the judgment of her half-Kneazle.

"Will you stop that bloody cat of yours from trying to kill Arnold!" screeched Ginny.

"Well maybe he has cause," snapped Hermione, "considering that the last pet he attacked turned out to be a Death Eater disguised as a rat!" She shot a disparaging glance at the Pygmy-Puff, "Crookshanks certainly has taste! I don't see why the world needs a pet that looks like a fright-wig that's been stuck in a tumble-dryer!"

Over the next few minutes the continuing spat ranged from Ginny attacking Hermione for her bushy hair – '_are combs banned in your house?'_ – to Hermione attacking Ginny over her poor OWL results – '_I hope you like Manticore-burgers, because you'll be flipping them for the rest of your life!' … 'Sure, when I'm not spending my time 'patronising' Muggles, Miss Wizard-Hating, Over-Sensitive Muggleborn!'_

"God, I wish she'd shut up," ground out Ron.

Harry shifted to peer into Luna's compartment. It was clear that its occupants could hear the screaming-match, but the only one not embarrassed was Luna who calmly said that if the two girls would shriek then they could expect to be overheard.

Harry noted that she now had her _Quibbler_ turned upside down: evidently she had completed the quiz and was now tranquilly checking her answers.

The screaming came through the walls with Hermione now screeching that Harry and Ginny had the same foul temper.

"Well, he does behave with terrible temper on occasions," Luna said dreamily, "I really don't think that's an entirely unreasonable thing to say."

Harry almost imploded with the effort of keeping his mouth shut: _would Luna Lovegood kindly stop saying that!_

From beneath his Cloak he eyed her crossly. Angry thoughts filled his head of the girl who read _The Quibbler_ upside down, believed six impossible things before breakfast, wore a Butterbeer necklace, earrings that looked like radishes and went Snorkack hunting in Sweden. How could you expect her to say anything _sensible?_

"I think that what Ginny did was an awful thing," continued Luna, "but it was obvious she had always really _liked_ Harry, and suddenly being presented with her chance must have been very tempting for her. Admittedly she should have told Harry what Hermione was doing the moment she found out – or simply told Hermione to stop if she didn't want to cause trouble - but I do feel slightly sorry for Ginny."

She turned a page as both Neville and Theodore Nott each desperately pretended to be reading, now trying to ignore both the screaming from next door and Luna too.

Luna paused, looking up from her paper, "I wonder why Hermione did it? She's always so sensible. It's hard to believe it was only to let Ginny get Harry, that's rather a silly reason …"

Harry – half-deafened by the still-screeching Hermione and Ginny - felt a spike of grim annoyance, largely because Luna was right: dosing him just to let Ginny have him was a silly reason, Hermione had done it for far stronger motives than that. She had roared them at him the last time he had met her.

"The wizarding world has always taken a very careless attitude to love potions," Luna floated on, "the Weasley twins even sell them as a bit of fun. It wasn't as though Hermione had any reason to think they were awful. I think they're horrible, but not many others shared my opinion. It's a bit hypocritical for wizarding society to act shocked now, just because it was Harry who was dosed."

Harry went from grim annoyance to grim outrage, but then, well, Luna wasn't _entirely _wrong, a lot of girls had been trying to potion him and none of them had thought it was wicked, it had all been a bit of a joke. Only Hermione had taken it seriously and she'd done it because she'd thought she had just cause … He felt Ron go very quiet next to him and knew what Ron was thinking: that Luna had a point and maybe it was all spiraling into over-reaction and they should re-consider on excluding Hermione …

Another series of shouted accusations interrupted his thoughts.

"Oh please!" screeched Hermione. "You've never done a thing that didn't revolve around getting Harry! Even when you went to the Yule Ball with Neville, it was just because you knew Harry would be there!"

"That does it," Neville stood up, "I'm leaving." He offered his hand to Luna who got up to go with him.

Harry felt momentarily aghast, Neville didn't _fancy_ Luna, did he?

Luna got up to go with Neville, who then looked down at Nott, "You coming?"

Harry's eyes widened: Neville's parents had been destroyed by Death Eaters and now he was extending some camaraderie – well, a lack of enmity – toward Theodore Nott? But then he, Harry, was still holding the door open for Draco Malfoy of all people and Neville had always been far more fair than Harry.

For a second Harry thought Nott was going to pretend that Neville hadn't spoken, but he lurched to his feet and nodded. The three - Neville, Luna and Nott - scooped up their belongings and left the entire carriage.

Harry watched them go. His mouth moved silently as Luna passed him, wanting to say something but not sure what. He took a half-step after her, but of course it was hopeless and she turned the corner and was gone.

A furious screech came from Hermione's compartment, jerking his attention to it like a pointer-dog. "You practically turned yourself into Cho Chang in an effort to get him! Turning yourself into Harry's type!"

Harry's jaw dropped – what 'type'? He didn't _have_ a type!

"Only on your advice!" Ginny screamed, then mimicked Hermione's voice. "_He's obviously got a type. Change yourself! Be sporty! Be popular! Have boyfriends,"_ her voice raised to a roar, "_be like CHO CHANG!"_

"All those lies I had to tell!" Hermione yelled, ignoring any point that Ginny might be making. "That utter _nonsense_ about you teaching yourself to fly by sneaking goes on your brothers' brooms as a little girl! The truth was that you'd given yourself a crash-course so you could claim you shared Harry's interest in Quidditch!"

Ginny made an explosive noise but Hermione would not be stopped. "Telling everyone you'd broken up with Michael Corner because he was a 'sore loser' over Quidditch. The real reason was that Harry wasn't bothered by you dating him, and after that lunacy in the library," – _what lunacy?_ – "you finally thought you had a chance with Harry, so you dumped Corner! Then on the way home on the train, telling Harry that Cho Chang was going out with Michael! It was a complete lie! You just wanted to make absolutely sure that Harry didn't get back with Cho, so you told him she was already going out with someone else!"

Hermione didn't even draw breath before marching on.

"And then you started your disgraceful, 'I chose Dean Thomas' plan! You weren't even going out with Dean over the Summer – you just lied about that too. Dean didn't know anything about it till you got back to school and made your moves on him. Parading him about. Snogging him in front of Harry. The fact is, if Harry hadn't been dosed, he wouldn't have noticed you – boyfriends or not!"

At that, there was a thunderous silence from the compartment, as though a storm was about to break.

"_SHUT UP YOU RIGHTEOUS COW!"_ screamed Ginny, _"NO WONDER YOU'VE GOT NO FRIENDS, NO-ONE CAN STAND YOU!"_

Harry felt his eyebrows shoot up into his hairline.

"I was popular before all this! Boys _liked_ me! What did I need you for? At least the _Daily Prophet_ is getting it right, it was all you - you _used_ me!"

"_Me?_ What about _you?_ You weren't exactly dashing to tell him when you found out! You threw a quick strop when I first told you – _it's immoral, Hermione!_ - sitting there with your arms all folded and then insulting me about Quidditch of all things, but then you were just racing to cop a feel at the Quidditch Cup party!"

"So? In real life you don't get gold stars for being a good little girl. But you don't know that, do you? Because you don't know how to live!"

"I do know how to live! I," Hermione mentally thrashed about for conclusive proof, "– I went out with Viktor Krum!"

"I bet you dosed him!"

"I did not potion Viktor!"

"I bet you dosed half the lads you've ever been out with!"

Hermione went red and then - "Viktor liked me for real! He liked me for _me!"_

"Well Ron and Harry never did! You made them be your friend with that troll business in your first-year. Then fixing Harry's glasses to be water repellant for Quidditch, doing their thinking for them because they were too lazy to, doing their homework because they couldn't be bothered. They weren't friends with you because of who you were, but because of what you did for them!"

Hermione flushed a deep scarlet.

"No-one liked you!" Ginny stormed. "They only put up with you because you were with Harry and Ron. When Cho Chang came on the scene you practically wet yourself! Everyone wondered why the hex that hit Marietta Edgecombe was so strong, but I knew why: you secretly thought it was going to hit Cho Chang! She was the obvious one! She was the flighty one! She was the one most likely to tell -"

"I never -!"

"You thought she was going to tell so you built a hex that would 'sort her out'!"

"That is ridiculous!"

"But it was all falling apart on you! You needed your place in 'the trio', so how could you made sure you kept it, eh? Go out with one of them – that's how! You couldn't get Harry, he wasn't remotely interested in you – so _you set your mind to going out with Ron!_"

Harry was horrified: Ron was hearing all this.

Hermione was on her feet, "_That's not true! I – for ages I -"_

"You don't fancy Ron! It's obvious! You don't even like kissing him! What does it feel like - snogging someone you don't fancy? Bet it feels like snogging a face full of cold snot!" Ginny's voice broke slightly at that because it was a description of her own experiences, "Snogging people you don't want! I -" her voice trembled and then – "You set your cap at Ron to cement your place in the 'trio'! You don't even _respect_ him! Do you think I don't know that? I _saw_ what you did – _I saw what you did that day!"_

Harry felt a cold start – like an ice-cube pressed against him.

"I don't know what you're -!"

"At the Quidditch try-outs! I was _there_. You were lurking under the stands. I _saw_ you. _I know what you did!"_

Harry froze. The Quidditch try-outs. Hermione Confundusing McLaggan. _Ginny Weasley knew!_

Hermione exploded out of the carriage, gripping Crookshanks' basket and sliding the door shut behind her with a slam. "If we see any Pygmy Puffs, Crookshanks," she shouted deliberately for Ginny's benefit as she strode off down the corridor, "you can eat as many as you like!"

It was one of the few times in his life when Harry was deeply glad he could not see Ron's face. He stood very still, wondering what Ron would make of Ginny's words … '_I know what you did!' _

There was still total silence from Ron.

" … Ron," Harry wasn't sure what he could actually say. "Ron, girls say terrible things to each other when they're rowing, they'll sling anything at each other whether it's true or not. I saw two girls ripping each other apart on Diagon Alley once over who was -"

"Let's just go." Ron sounded very flat. "That day at the Quidditch try outs, I bet Hermione was laughing or something."

Or something … 

Harry silently struggled with an uncomfortable recollection: Malfoy also saying he was sure that Hermione and Ron didn't fancy each other, but that neither wanted to be the first to admit it.

On the way back to the luggage van, they had to run the gauntlet of school gossip again.

"I wouldn't mind, but even her own brothers say she's a slag." Lavender Brown's stage-whispered hiss got everyone's attention. Harry heard Ron shift sharply. "Honest. Dean told Seamus who told me! She persuaded Dean to accompany her along some corridor – they weren't going out so he couldn't believe his luck when he thought she was showing an interest – and then she just jumps him! Well, he wasn't going to turn her down, was he? So he starts kissing her back, and then, when Ginny Weasley's going at it like she's on-heat, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley turn up!"

There was a communal gasp from the girls.

Harry had a horrible recollection of that very incident: he'd seen Ginny Weasley kissing fiercely with Dean and something horrible and violent had erupted within him and he had wanted to jinx the peaceable Dean to a jelly. That reaction had all been the result of a love potion, he was sure of it now.

"Well, Dean leaves but the Weasleys are shouting at each other so he can hear them anyway and he hears Ron Weasley saying that he was sick of hearing people calling her for a slut!"

"Ron Weasley actually _said_ that?"

"Well, no," Lavender was forced to admit, "but only because she interrupted him before he could get the full word out!"

Ron invisibly turned on his heel and stormed off.

When the train stopped at Hogsmeade station they got off and hitched a ride into school, each invisibly hiding on the luggage shelf of a separate carriage.

Ron had sneaked a ride on the back of a carriage containing Terry Boot, Summersby and some third-years.

No girls.

Ron didn't want to hear any more gossip.

Harry found himself hanging off the back of the carriage holding Neville, Luna and Theodore Nott. As he heard Luna's high, clear voice, he told himself he had selected that carriage by accident.

He heard her asking Neville if he wanted to organise a version of the DA again.

"Er – I'm – I'm not the leadership sort, Luna."

"Most people aren't, Neville, until they have to be. But you were at the DoM. You fought at the tower invasion. Everyone knows you can do it if you have to."

"Well you did those things too. Why can't you do it?"

"Because quite clearly no-one would attend any organisation I set up, because everyone thinks I'm mad."

Hanging off the back of the carriage, Harry had almost laughed aloud at that.

"Only this time, Neville, we might like to invite all the houses, including Slytherin House?" Harry started at that suggestion of Luna's – he would never have come up with it. She carried on, clearly addressing the other occupant of the carriage, "You might care to attend a few meetings, Theodore …? You don't have to join, as such. Just see if you like it …?"

As the carriage rattled and bumped up the drive, pulled by Thestrals, Harry wondered at how odd it was that the three people in the carriage, four if you included himself, could all see the Thestrals. Neville had hesitatingly said that he had witnessed the death of his grandfather. Harry knew Luna, as a young girl, had watched her mother die. He had seen Cedric and Sirius die – and Dumbledore.

He didn't know precisely who Theodore Nott had watched die.


	15. Chapter 15

Title: (Chapter 15)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. 

Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Chapter 15**

Ron was seething.

He had been flat when he had first heard Ginny's statements on the train, but now, with his ill-feelings given time to bubble, he was in a temper.

"Ginny spending ages plotting and Hermione keeping quiet about it: all that love potion episode did was to reverse their roles! I've got a sister who's a lying tart, and a so-called girlfriend who never fancied me!"

Harry reached out blindly and had the luck to grab Ron's invisible arm. "Look Ron, we know you're sister tells porkies." Harry really wished he could see Ron's face so he could gauge his reaction but carried on anyway. "All that stuff about her cynically 'choosing Dean'? I believe it! And I'll tell you another thing too: that incident where we caught your sister snogging Dean in the corridor? – I think she set it up!"

"What …?"

"You heard it on the train: Dean said she was never interested in him and Hermione _told us_ that Ginny was using Dean. They weren't even going out when she snogged him in that corridor - _that was their first kiss!_ And what a time and place to have it, eh? I turn up and see it all – see how 'attractive' she is to other boys!" Harry brushed aside the horrible memory of the chest-monster, "The timing of that corridor kiss couldn't have worked out better for her if she'd planned it! And that was because she did plan it!"

"But how …?"

"It was in the back-corridor, the short-cut we always used when coming back from Quidditch practice. She knew that. Well, it was after Quidditch practice – she knew we'd turn up sooner or later, all she had to do was wait._"_

"But it didn't work out for her, she must've realised it wouldn't work!" Ron sounded horrified – surely his own sister could not have been that scheming?

"Why would she think it wouldn't work? She didn't know you'd fly off the handle. She couldn't even be sure you'd be there, it might have just been me by myself with you staying behind for extra practice. The fact that it blew up in her face doesn't mean she didn't plan it! She isn't exactly known for her brains, is she?"

"I need a walk around to clear my head." Ron sounded bitter, hurt, angry and confused, all in one. "We know what our plan is. If we're both back at the Head's Office for twenty-past, we'll be alright." He increasingly sounded rather bewildered and flustered.

They had a plan. Their main aim had re-asserted itself: to get the sword.

Harry took a reflexive look at his own left-wrist to check the time, but of course it was broken, having been smashed back at Malfoy's place. It was annoying: a watch was like a wand - one of those things you don't notice until it's missing. He'd get the time from somewhere though. Besides, he had the Map and it would show him when Professor McGonagall left her office.

"See you then, eh?" Harry suggested to the patch of air where Ron was.

But Ron was already gone.

They had gotten into Hogwarts by tricking their way past the giant security portal which had guarded the front door. Crabbe and Goyle had each separately set off the security arch as they had lumbered through it. Both hulking great lads had been led aside for checks. In each case, nothing had been found but it was assumed that their sheer stupidity might have set the security off: they were probably scheming about how to get to the feast early. From the _inside_ of the entrance hall, Harry and Ron had then watched them enter. They each had dived through the arch when Crabbe, and then Goyle, had initially tried to go through: when they had set the alarms off with their various combinations of wands, Cloaks, false and defunct Horcruxes, it was assumed in each case that Malfoy's troglodytes had been the guilty party.

Harry was now outside the Head's office, waiting for McGonagall to leave having earlier snooped on her password – _Scotch Mist_.

They had lurked at the Sorting Feast, witnessing the Hat's Song – about House Unity again – and Professor McGonagall's speech that the lake was off-limits, "due to Ministry security".

During the feast, Ginny had sat estranged and excluded at one end of the Gryffindor table, trying to pretend that being ostracised was normal. Hermione, sitting in the throng as she was still Head Girl, had been uncontactable because of the number of people around her.

The Gryffindor table had been abuzz with the words _"Dumbledore's Army? Setting up again? The Ravenclaws and Huffs are up for it! – What? – And they're inviting the Slyths, so we can't be left out!"_

Evidently Neville, prompted by Luna, was wasting no time.

Harry had kept catching glimpses of Luna drifting about, dreamily talking, _"Neville says … Dumbledore's Army … self-defense … there's a war on …"_ Eventually she had sat down next to Terry Boot.

Harry had looked at Terry darkly.

_Great! First Neville, now Terry! Another one of her unlikely boyfriends!_

Across the Hall, he had then caught sight of Theodore Nott, talking furtively to his remaining housemates, with them casting covert glances at the teachers' top-table and then at the other Houses.

Evidently, they were talking about joining in on re-founding the DA too!

Harry didn't know how he felt about all that. The DA had been _his!_ Well, okay, not his – not his actual property – but he'd led it, and okay, so he'd let it fall apart but …

But it was _his!_ And now they were just carrying on without him?

When McGonagall had left, he and Ron had followed her and eavesdropped on her password. But they had to wait half an hour until she was gone and they could search the office, and now Ron had gone, and Harry was feeling rather flat.

He wondered where to go.

Gryffindor? Why bother? Full of gossiping girls, and even if he wanted to talk to Hermione – and he wasn't sure he did – then she'd be up in the girls' dorm beyond his reach.

Ravenclaw …? That did have its attractions … Er … _NO_, not – er not _'attractions',_ he'd never meant that word, that had just sort of come out! Er … it was just that Luna was there, and maybe he could talk to her? Maybe this time he might actually have the last word! But there would be the rest of the House there and …

Where could he go that might be show him something _useful_?

A few minutes later he surprised himself by sneaking into Malfoy's dorm under cover of Cloak: he knew where Malfoy's bed was, he'd spied on him enough times with the Map.

The beds of Crabbe and Goyle were positioned either side of Malfoy's empty one; had they _ever_ been parted from him? Their beds were scrupulously neat – obviously in their own way the kept themselves very clean and tidy – but they had no books, no photographs, no personal objects of any kind, instead they just had their Beater's bats hung above their bed heads like a couple of cave-troll clubs!

On Malfoy's bedside cabinet, there was silver-framed photograph of his mum and dad.

Harry crept up to it and tilted it to lie face-down. Even though he was invisible, the thought of having Lucius Malfoy 'watch' him in any form was something he did not want.

The rest of Malfoy's things were far less sinister. The silver-backed hairbrushes were something Harry would never have had, but they didn't look as though they'd actually bite you. There was also a lot of Seeker stuff and a Seeker's-gauntlet with – Harry picked it up and checked it - Krum's autograph inked on it. There were lots of books on dragons: Harry suddenly remembered 'Francis Dashwood's' interest in them, that interest had been genuine then.

Harry opened the cabinet drawer and poked the jumbled contents about: among them an old 'Support Cedric Diggory' badge, some broken quills and even a pack of cards – not even the self-shuffling sort, just an ordinary, rather greasy, worn pack. Presumably they hadn't used the magical, self-shuffling sort in case one of them cheated with a sneaky wand-flick. Harry shuffled about in the drawer some more and found a score sheet: the Slytherins played Poker. The scores showed that Malfoy tended to win. Harry hefted the deck and realised he wouldn't have been surprised to find that the cards were marked. The Draco Malfoy he was coming to know was someone who would regard 'cheating' as merely 'an alternative method of winning'.

Harry couldn't see anything that he thought counted as a clue, but then again, what had he been looking for clues about?

_Clues that Malfoy isn't such a creep as to have told Voldemort about the Horcruxes, so that you can stop worrying yourself sick that the sword is already gone!_

He was just about to jam the cabinet drawer shut when he saw something that at least made his journey to Malfoy's bedside worthwhile – a spare watch! Harry had a split-second compunction about taking it but then realised that Malfoy was hardly likely to turn up and ask for it back.

Then he heard the dorm door scrape open and reflexively dived under the bed, forgetting he was under the safety of the Cloak. From his now limited view, all he could see was a pair of scampering house-elf feet which flat-footedly slapped toward Malfoy's bed.

Harry jolted: _Kreacher?_

But then, Kreacher still did work at Hogwarts and with his devoted, almost adoring, attitude toward Malfoy, it was hardly surprising he had appointed himself as guardian to Malfoy's remaining possessions. Harry could hear him taking things. "All Master Draco's beautiful things – won't be left here! Not with the nasty children!"

Harry thought Kreacher was probably going to build a shrine to Malfoy somewhere, much as he had in his fetid nest back at Grimmauld Place where he had kept Black family knick-knacks.

Kreacher seemed to be taking quite a while – as though he was taking as much stuff as he could carry. Harry checked his watch – well, Malfoy's watch: if Kreacher didn't get a move on he was going to be pushed to meet Ron on time!

"And I mustn't forget for my note!" squeaked Kreacher. Harry's face screwed up in puzzlement – _what note?_ But then Kreacher worked for Hogwarts, he was running errands for teachers all the time. "Must deliver my note!"

Kreacher turned and trotted off with his splayed scamper, his arms full.

Harry was very glad to see him go.

He quickly shuffled out from under the bed – Malfoy's bedside table had a lot fewer things on it than before, the photograph and the hair-brushes had definitely gone – and he hurried out the room. He escaped the common-room, got out of the Slytherin dungeon, raced up flights of stairs to the Head's office and only slowed as he approached it. _"Ron …?"_

"_What kept you?"_ Ron hissed. He shifted his Cloak and Harry saw his face appear, as though floating in mid-air. "She's already gone. I've been waiting for you!"

Harry was flustered. He didn't feel able to say he'd spent his time loitering around Malfoy's bed. Instead, he said, "I'll go up, you keep cavy."

Harry heard Ron rustle about and then a hand materialised in mid-air, holding a Galleon. "Here, we'll use these. I've got my D.A. coin and I – er – requisitioned Terry Boot's just now from the Ravenclaw boy's dorm. I'll flash you a warning on it if I see her coming back."

Harry was startled, he'd completely forgotten about the coins.

"Are you sure you can send the message?" He had no idea how Hermione actually made the coins work. "All I can remember is that it's something to do with a spell beginning with 'P'."

"Protean Charm," clarified Ron. "I'm no great shakes at it." He sounded dubious for a moment but then perked up, "– But I can make the coin vibrate a bit! Er …" his voice fell again, "I've been practicing." He said the word 'practicing' as though it was a dirty word attached to a nasty act. Harry grinned to himself and snatched the coin. Ron was still Ron. He muttered 'Scotch Mist', the circular staircase was revealed, and he hopped on a step and slid up.

At the top, with the door below him now closed and the whole place very silent, Harry surreptitiously pushed at the office door. He was still under cover of Invisibility Cloak but he wanted it to look like the door might just be swinging open on its own, and then he tentatively crept into the office.

He was as nervous of his movements being spotted by the paintings as he was of finding that the sword was already gone, but until he'd invisibly peered around the door he hadn't given any thought as to how entering Professor Dumbledore's old office might actually affect him as a person.

It left him with a very dull, all-over pain, as though he'd been badly beaten up but had been given an anesthetic, so the true pain was far greater than the portion he was feeling. It was a sudden, cavernous sense of loss. A few weeks ago he'd had the greatest wizard in the world at his shoulder – the only one Voldemort had ever feared - and now the Professor was gone, after having been forced to drink the potion from the font …

Harry jolted as the portrait of Phineas Nigellus, the Slytherin ex-Headmaster, tried to wake Professor Dumbledore's still-slumbering painting by roaring, "Wake up Albus, you old coot!"

"He needs more time, Phineas!" cried the other paintings.

"I have lost the remainder of my immediate family – my last two great-great nephews, Sirius and Regulus. Voldemort is on the rise and we all know it. _There is_ _no more time!"_ There was a cacophony of protest at this from the other paintings. Nigellus shouted at them. "There is no time left for niceties!"

"But Phineas -"

"Oh for heaven sakes!" Nigellus was exasperated. "I know, let's have a little test of comprehension, shall we? How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Two!" answered the painting of Armando Dippet promptly, before coughing and blustering at the sight, going scarlet.

"And how many now?" persisted Nigellus.

"One," said Dilys Derwent brightly, before colouring red herself. "Oh - _Phineas!"_

"Can't say I haven't learned _something_ from generation after generation of surly teenagers," remarked Nigellus. He went back to arguing with the protesting paintings, "The other side won't be standing still – so neither can we!"

_The other side_ - Harry was uncomfortably reminded of his express mission: to get the sword.

He felt himself freeze. Now that he was in the office, he found he was unable to make himself look toward the shelf at the back of the Head's desk where the sword sat in its glass case. _Would it still be there?_ He felt like a child who'd just been told a monster story and who was now scared to look over his shoulder in case he saw a fiend. Moving as though he had rusted and movement was very slow, he ignored the shouting paintings and forcibly turned his face toward the shelf.

The sword was still there.

A huge weight slid off him: _he hadn't lost the sword! Malfoy hadn't told!_ Or … if Malfoy had, then Voldemort hadn't been able to get to it in time.

Beneath his Cloak, Harry turned about the office, seeing if he could spot the Professor's pensieve as a bonus. Was it here? Had he left a message in it? Surely he _must_ have known how dangerous the mission to the cave would be! He must have realised there was a chance he would not survive it! Surely he must have left a message?

As the paintings shouted, he surreptitiously edged open the cupboard where Professor Dumbledore had kept his pensieve. With a lurch, he saw that it was there! But then with a swoop, he saw that it was empty. Empty except for some strange burn-marks scorched into it. He didn't _think_ they'd been there the last time he'd seen it, but he couldn't be sure …

In any case, it was a disappointment but in the overwhelming relief of finding the sword, it could be accepted. Besides, a message in a pensieve had been a long-shot anyway.

He was just hurrying toward the shelf where the sword sat next to the now returned Sorting Hat, when the coin in his pocket gave a shiver – Ron was signaling him. The coin shivered again and again and again – Ron was signaling a frantic warning. Beneath the cover of his Cloak, Harry hauled the coin out and looked at it dumbly. Professor McGonagall was returning _now?_ She'd only just gone!

He heard the sounds of people mounting the circular steps and, still quite invisible, he flattened himself back against the wall between a cupboard and an occasional table which contained tea-things and refreshment glasses. As he did so, the door opened and Professor McGonagall entered, accompanied by a fawning Filch and … the reason for Ron's wildly frantic signaling, the Minister for Magic, Rufus Scrimgeour.


	16. Chapter 16

Title: (Chapter 16)   
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. 

Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 

**Chapter 16**

Harry felt a thump of adrenalin slam him straight in the chest.

He should have thought: Scrimgeour would use the potions palaver as an excuse to hassle Hogwarts, and thinking back on it, Mr. Weasley had suspected something similar too. Harry should have known that Scrimgeour might show his smiling, predatory face.

Harry's gaze was riveted to the tough, resourceful, ruthless, clever, elegant, shrewd and mentally agile Minister for Magic. The man who'd tried to kidnap Harry less than 24 hours earlier.

Why did he always end up on the opposite side of the fence from that sort?

Now Filch was bowing and scraping to Scrimgeour. "Your Ministership, such an honour, Sir, such an honour to have been able to escort you to the Head's office, Sir."

"So nice to see the school so clean, Mr. Filch. And such a quick route up those interminable moving staircases."

"I knows all the short-cuts, Sir. There's not much that gets past me, Mr. Scrimgeour, Minister, Sir!"

"And so very _loyal_," approved Scrimgeour, flattering Filch. "So comforting to know that Hogwarts is watched over by someone so in tune with the Ministry. Dolores Umbridge has always spoken very warmly of you."

Harry knew Scrimgeour's compliments weren't true even if only because Scrimgeour held the vindictive Umbridge in contempt, but Filch almost simpered under Scrimgeour's compliments, disgustingly alike to Mrs. Norris being stroked.

"You may _go,_ Argus," rapped Professor McGonagall, smartly cutting across the theatrics.

With a sour look, Filch sloped off, muttering.

In the now-quiet room, the stern Head of Hogwarts and the clever-eyed Minister for Magic faced each other.

From his vantage point, Harry was convinced that surely Scrimgeour must be able to hear the thumping of his heart.

Harry was extremely tense, and not just for himself. He knew Scrimgeour was an attempted kidnapper – as maybe did Professor McGonagall, but was she alive to the possibility that he might be an actual murderer?

Had Scrimgeour _really_ killed Amelia Bones?

"So, you trust werewolves?" Scrimgeour's words were like the first move in a chess match, he was obviously talking about Remus Lupin.

"I'll thank you to use the man's name and title when you are in this school, Minister: Professor Remus Lupin." Professor McGonagall had obviously decided not to give an inch unless she had to. "I find him far preferable to the last Ministry-appointed teacher, Dolores Jane Umbridge: a person who was not only an incompetent teacher but also someone with a penchant for attempting to _Crucio_ students - not to mention for getting herself attacked by centaurs. It is a matter of record that she tried to _Crucio_ Harry Potter in an office less than a hundred yards from here."

To anyone less skilled in office knife-fighting than Scrimgeour, that would have been a killer blow.

But he hadn't gotten to the top by being dumb, slow and scared.

"We only have the childrens' word for that."

"One of whom you seem obsessed with as theChosen One. Odd that when he says things you _don't_ want to hear, he suddenly isn't that special." McGonagall tilted her chin. "Hogwarts has not made public the worst of the difficulties Umbridge brought to the school. The school chose not to as it would have put pressure on the Ministry for no reason, as she was already gone."

The threat that they yet might expose Umbridge was implicit.

"Naturally, as I choose not to interfere with your choice of Ministry staff," continued McGonagall, "likewise I expect that you will respect my choice of staff."

Harry didn't think he'd ever heard anyone be blackmailed so elegantly.

Scrimgeour paused, then changed tack. "What is the school proposing to do about Miss Granger?"

Harry held his breath.

"Using love potion isn't a crime," retorted the Professor.

"True, but she was using under-age magic outside Hogwarts – she was under 17 when she brewed her own love potion at The Burrow. She then used love potions at Hogwarts, where they are banned. She was Of Age then, but in that instance she was using them at a forbidden location."

Harry's mouth clamped shut in a hard, straight line. So Scrimgeour was going after Hermione with whatever he could get, was he? She was guilty at The Burrow for underage magic and she was guilty later because she was doing it at Hogwarts? Harry felt an increasing anger: it seemed unfair to get Hermione both ways!

"The Ministry could go so far as to prosecute," Harry's eyebrows shot up at that – _prosecute?_ - "but that need not be necessary: the wizarding world does not need a witch hunt."

Professor McGonagall attempted to re-take the initiative, "Where is Harry Potter?"

There was a silence. "He chooses not to come to school. He chooses to stay at the Ministry."

Harry knew that Scrimgeour was lying. Harry knew that Professor McGonagall may have considered that Scrimgeour was lying. Given that Harry had escaped Scrimgeour and it was unclear whether he was dead or possibly with the Order, Scrimgeour might even think that McGonagall _knew_ he was lying.

It was amazing how adept each was at covering it up: not a flicker.

"However, as I said," smiled Scrimgeour, "the Ministry does not want any witch hunt but," his voice hardened slightly and Harry knew: _here it comes_ … "it does want answers. As such, I would like to interview Miss Granger."

So – he was going after Hermione, suspecting she might know where Harry was?

Whatever Professor McGonagall might have said was swept aside as a panting Slughorn nearly fell through the office door. _"Horace?"_ remarked McGonagall. "Here at my request," interjected Scrimgeour, "I sent him a note upon my arrival, requesting his assistance."

And then Harry saw the flask which Slughorn had brought with him, it appeared to contain water … Harry's gaze was riveted to it, because of course, given Scrimgeour's nature, Harry was prepared to bet that it was not water at all.

"_Veritaserum?"_ screeched McGonagall. She turned to Scrimgeour, _"You will not dose one of my students!"_

"The Ministry has been voted special emergency powers to take immediate action when the wizarding world is under threat."

"Under threat? Don't be absurd! How can one girl's silly actions be seen as a threat?" 

"I am perfectly within my rights to bring the full weight of wizarding law down upon Miss Granger. She could even be prosecuted under Section 13 of the International Confederation of the Warlocks Statute of Secrecy resulting in a possible sentence in Azkaban or … she can answer a few questions about what potions she used on Harry."

Professor McGonagall's mouth opened and closed. There wasn't anything unreasonable in Scrimgeour's request, even though it was a pack of lies; answering a few questions was far better than the alternative Hermione was faced with: prosecution and Azkaban. The Professor gathered herself, "But we hardly need Veritaserum to ask her!"

"Miss Granger has proven herself adept at subterfuge and deception. I rather think we do need it."

At the edge of the room, a sweating, uncomfortable Slughorn shifted awkwardly. If Harry didn't know any better, he would have guessed that Scrimgeour looked terrified. Harry saw that whilst he was clutching the flask in one hand, he was clutching a note in his other: the one Scrimgeour had dispatched to him? "Minister," Slughorn coughed nervously, handing him the flask, "Professor," he nodded to Professor McGonagall, his voice sounding wheezy and strangulated, "I must say that I never signed up to Hogwarts for anything like this. No, not indeed!" He yanked at his collar as though it was choking him, his other hand worrying the note he held. He swallowed before issuing his next words as though making a public announcement, "I resign! I wish to leave the school immediately!"

"What?" choked Professor McGonagall, "_now!?"_

Even Scrimgeour raised his brows.

Harry stared at the heavily sweating D.A.D.A. Professor as Slughorn thrust the note into his pocket and proceeded to mop his forehead with a handkerchief. He really did look shocked, his hand was trembling.

"Term has only just begun!" protested Professor McGonagall. "Classes start on Monday! Where am I going to get a replacement now? No! If you want to leave, you'll have to wait until the end of term and then you may go!"

Slughorn looked numbly at Professor McGonagall but did not dare to disagree: the Professor could be astoundingly forceful when she put her mind to it. He nodded, turned and left, gulping and muttering to himself, mopping his brow again, his free hand still compulsively rustling the note in his pocket.

Professor McGonagall immediately turned on Scrimgeour. "You will _not _dose one of my students!"

"I'm afraid I _shall_, Minerva." Scrimgeour moved to the refreshments table - mere inches from a horrified Harry – and poured a glassful of water and dropped some Veritaserum into it. "There are a lot of secrets I don't know. For instance," Scrimgeour shot the flustered McGonagall a sharp look, "what exactly killed Dumbledore?"

It was as though he had been hoping to catch her off-guard, but when she simply looked blankly back at him, he pressed on. "Snape hit him with the A.K. obviously, and with that being instant it at least saved Dumbledore the effects of the fall, which would definitely have killed him. But there was one very odd fact: the Necrotopsy showed that Dumbledore was already dying. A poison apparently. Evidently he couldn't have lived anyway."

It was a crushing blow – but not to the clearly uncomprehending McGonagall, but to Harry.

Harry - hidden, invisible - almost collapsed against the wall. His vision darkened, there was an ever-louder rushing noise in his ears. _A poison apparently. Evidently he couldn't have lived anyway …_ He thought he was going to throw up or faint or fall over. He knew exactly where that potion had been drunk, and exactly who had forced the Professor to drink it …

He tuned back in to see Scrimgeour still addressing McGonagall, "At least in the next few minutes, I might discover just a few more facts." The Minister cocked his head slightly, "Indeed, I think I hear Miss Granger approaching now."

Professor McGonagall whirled toward the door as Hermione came through it. Hermione was looking rather afraid, even though trying to hide it; she was firmly escorted by Dawlish.

A sick, shaking Harry tensed and wondered what his chances were of taking out two grown Aurors. He was scared for Hermione as well as McGonagall now.

Scrimgeour welcomed Hermione even as the Professor objected, and for a few seconds all attention was directed to the doorway.

Hermione knew a lot about Voldemort, Horcruxes, the prophecy … the shaking Harry, chest tight, stomach hollow, forced himself to take his chance.

He could not allow Hermione to be subject to Veritaserum. She knew too much and Harry was certain that Scrimgeour, once started, would not limit his questions to teenaged girls and love potions.

Moving swiftly he reached out, poured another glass of water and swapped it for the one containing Veritaserum, taking the adulterated glass under his Cloak with a shaking hand. He hoped no-one would notice that, overall, there was one glass fewer upon the table-top.

"You will _not_ dose my students!"

The Professor was screeching at Scrimgeour even as a bemused and frightened-looking Hermione glanced between the Professor and the Minister. Scrimgeour simply ignored McGonagall.

"Miss Granger, I am here to ask you some questions on behalf of the Ministry."

"Hermione," rang the Professor, "do _not_ drink from that glass! It contains Veritaserum!"

"What?" screeched Hermione: she began to struggle.

Scrimgeour sighed and whipped out his wand, "_Imperius!"_ Professor McGonagall's voice hit a pitch that should have cracked glass – an Unforgivable used on one of her students? - but Hermione went instantly still and blank-eyed, she had never had Harry's resistance to mind-control. The portraits of the Heads roared and shouted, _'You bounder, Sir! You cad!'_ but Scrimgeour ignored it all. "Miss Granger," he announced evenly, "kindly drink from the filled glass which is upon the table top. There's a good girl."

Totally unable to resist, Hermione did just that, replacing the glass and then returning to stand before Scrimgeour and the still-shrieking Professor McGonagall.

"_Finite Incantatum,"_ pronounced Scrimgeour, pointing his wand at Hermione again. She immediately shivered as though she had abruptly woken up. "No need to have the spell on her at the same time as the potion," mused the Minister, "after all, I wouldn't want one to somehow interfere with the other."

"_How dare you!"_ Professor McGonagall was screaming.

"Oh, do shut up, Minerva." Scrimgeour turned directly to the Professor, "You may, of course, leave if you wish."

At that, the Professor abruptly silenced, her mouth opening and closing, whether in shock or calculation it was hard to say. "I'll stay," she responded. Harry's eyebrows shot up – she had stopped complaining? "I think -" her words stumbled, "I think that Miss Granger needs school representation here." Harry's eyebrows rose even further. Was Professor McGonagall equally keen to find out what Hermione might know, now that she was going to tell anyway? She turned to Hermione, "The Minister wishes to ask you some questions on the dosing of Harry, Hermione; just relax and answer him."

Scrimgeour looked across to the somewhat eager-looking Dawlish, "You may leave, Dawlish."

Dawlish left, looking as grumpy as Filch had earlier.

Scrimgeour seemed to settle, as though considering his questions. Harry, rigid by the wall, stared at Hermione, furiously willing her to twig to the switched Veritaserum and to play along. The switch would be for naught if she did not pretend to have been dosed. Professor McGonagall watched silently, seemingly almost on tip-toe with nervous anticipation.

"Hermione," said Scrimgeour, "when did you first dose Harry with love potion?"

Hermione answered the question in a totally metronomic fashion.

"At The Burrow."

Utterly toneless, no hint of defiance. Harry would have let out a sigh of relief if he had dared make the noise; he knew that Hermione had caught on and was playing the game. She was pretending to be Veritaserumed.

"Did you then go on to dose him at Hogwarts?"

"Yes."

Professor McGonagall let out an involuntary noise of vexed frustration, but did not intervene.

"How many times?" persisted Scrimgeour.

"I can't remember precisely. There were lots of times."

Harry clenched his jaw. He didn't really need to know that – especially as Hermione did not really need to say it, she was not under the effects of Veritaserum, that was a fact.

"Okay, so you can't recall the number of times you dosed Harry at Hogwarts," Harry heard that calculating edge to Scrimgeour's voice again, "So … when was the first time you dosed Harry at Hogwarts?"

"In our fifth-year."

Professor McGonagall, and even Scrimgeour, jerked to attention at that.

"It was in the Spring, I dosed him with Draught of Peace. He was so angry and depressed all the time. He kept having these mood swings. I thought it would make him happy."

Harry was aghast. Dosing him in the fifth-form? But there was no need to say any of this stuff even if it was true – she wasn't being dosed! She had total control over what she said!

"When exactly was he dosed with the Draught of Peace?" persisted an interested Scrimgeour.

"It was in the library one Sunday, just before Easter. I put the potion in a shop-bought Easter egg. I put the tampered egg in the box of home-made Easter eggs that Mrs. Weasley sent us, and then made sure that Harry got that particular egg."

Staggered, Harry had a crashing memory of that very occasion: Ginny Weasley had suddenly popped up next to him in the school library, racing to give him that dratted Easter egg! He recalled her appearance: windswept, pink-faced, hair all over the place, mud-spattered cloak - she must have come straight from Quidditch practice! She hadn't even taken time to clean up or get changed or even drag a comb through her hair! Had the potion been something that had to be delivered within a certain period of making it? Ginny Weasley had actually deliberately handed him the affected egg! She had been in on it! And he had felt so much calmer immediately he had eaten the chocolate … he had been potioned! Hermione was not making this up!

"Was Ginny Weasley involved in that?" Scrimgeour leant forward, keen to hear the reply.

"No."

_What?_ Harry was both startled and angry. She _had _been!

"Were Draught of Peace and love potion the only potions you used upon Harry?"

"No."

Harry's eyeballs almost popped. Professor McGonagall's hand flew to her mouth, Scrimgeour leant forward, "What other potions did you use, Hermione?"

"On occasions last year I slipped him a bit of Elixir of Euphoria, I thought it might raise his spirits, it always gives a person the feeling of a nice sunny day. I also put Entrancement Charms on him. He wasn't a very attractive boy, he could be a bit dour and angry, he was good at Quidditch but he wasn't witty or funny or clever. I wanted him to be happy, I wanted him to get a girlfriend. I made it so that girls were interested in him."

Harry felt absolutely smashed. He recalled all those girls weirdly mesmerized by him last year – a lot of them trying to potion him. Did that mean that even Luna had _never_ liked him? Angry and aghast, he stared at Hermione. Why had she even brought all this up? No-one had even suspected it. She could have kept her mouth shut. She was simply adding to the evidence against her!

"Did you love potion Viktor Krum?" That was Scrimgeour. When it came to it, evidently he was as interested in gossip as the next _Daily Prophet_ reader.

"No, Viktor genuinely cared for me," - Scrimgeour looked rather disappointed at that - "but I did dose Cormac McLaggan with it so he'd be interested in me."

"Well you don't let a little thing like morality stop you," Scrimgeour sounded almost admiring. "Did you actually _blackmail_ Rita Skeeter?"

"Yes."

McGonagall gasped.

"_Fabulous!"_ cawed Scrimgeour.

"I potioned McLaggan because wanted someone cool to accompany me to Professor Slughorn's Christmas party."

Harry was also aghast and disbelieving, but then … that time in the library when she'd said she thought the twins' potions were effective. Thing was, at that time she'd thought they hadn't worked on him, so how had she known they were effective? She must have been using them on someone else.

Harry felt very flat. Hermione had used boys left and right to 'tweak' things. She had chosen McLaggan because,_ I thought he'd annoy Ron most_. Just like S.P.E.W., just like fixing the Quidditch try-outs that time, 'boys' had been a project for her to arrange so things 'worked properly'.

Harry opened his eyes. But why was Hermione even saying all these things? _She didn't need to! _He was then clutched by a very cold chill. Hermione wasn't really Veritaserumed, was she? He hadn't made some terrible mistake when switching the glasses with a shaking hand?

Without warning, Scrimgeour switched tack and tone, "Do you know where Harry went with Dumbledore, the night Dumbledore was killed?"

Harry's heart nearly stopped in his chest. If she was Veritaserumed, now was the -

Hermione didn't miss a beat: "No."

Harry would have slumped if he'd dared. She knew perfectly well where he'd gone. She wasn't Veritaserumed. He felt a wave of sick relief.

Scrimgeour looked disappointed at Hermione's answer, "Did Harry tell you where he went?"

"No. I felt very sad about it. He didn't seem to trust me."

"Well you were dosing him left, right and centre." Scrimgeour tried a fresh tack, "What was the wording of the prophecy in the Hall of Prophecy, Hermione?"

"I heard two. Shall I give you them both?"

Harry's head jerked up. He saw that Professor McGonagall was also very keen to hear what Hermione now had to say and uncomfortably wondered again about the possibility of a spy in the Order. He recalled that Professor McGonagall had once survived five Stunning Spells which Madam Pomphrey had said should have killed her. Shockingly, he found himself abruptly wondering if she had Horcruxed herself and that was why she had survived. At that, Harry knew he was on the edge of paranoia, but faced with a Scrimgeour who looked as though he hadn't done a thing wrong when Harry _knew_ he had, why couldn't McGonagall be a spy, or worse?

"Yes please, Hermione," replied Scrimgeour. "Kindly tell us the prophecies."

"… _at the solstice will come a new_ … that was from a bearded old man, and I heard another - …_and none will come after_ … that was from a young woman."

Scrimgeour was clearly fighting a battle not to show his frustration. "Can you tell us anything of the prophecy that is supposed to concern _Harry_ – the Chosen One?"

"No. I'm sure there was one. But I was unconscious when its orb got smashed in the fight, and I think the wording was lost in all the noise. In any case, if Harry knew what it said, he never told me."

Which was a direct lie – Hermione knew exactly what the prophecy was, he'd told her at The Burrow.

In response, Scrimgeour gave a gesture of exasperation, but there wasn't a hint of suspicion from him that Hermione might be lying. And then Harry realised why Hermione had determinedly told so many damning stories against herself: in admitting to so many sordid truths, she had bought herself unimpeachable credibility as a Veritaserum subject. From the very start she had realised that Scrimgeour would shift onto the topic of Harry and Dumbledore sooner or later and she had coolly readied for it: she had told appalling truths against herself so that, when it came right to it, she could lie for Harry and be believed. Despite everything, she had kept faith with him, even when she thought she had been abandoned and did not even know he was in the room.

"Well then, that does it," announced Scrimgeour.

"You'll have to step down as Head Girl," interjected Professor McGonagall, addressing Hermione quickly, as though heading Scrimgeour off.

"Oh I think we need a bit more than that, after all we've heard," commented Scrimgeour.

Professor McGonagall shot a nervous look at him as he stared down at Hermione, who stared back, jaw jutting slightly. Harry wondered what was coming. Scrimgeour straightened, "By my rights as Minister with emergency powers," his voice grew more sonorous, "and invoking both Section 13 of the International Confederation of the Warlock's Statute of Secrecy _and_ the covenant of Hogwarts banning use of love potion within the school," – Harry had a very cold feeling descend upon him, surely they couldn't be going to …? They couldn't be …! – "I hereby order you expelled from Hogwarts."

_NO!_ Harry almost shouted.

Hermione clapped her hand to her mouth to stifle a horrified cry.

Scrimgeour turned to Professor McGonagall, "Arrange for the Ceremony of Expulsion. Tomorrow morning's as good a time as any, no point in waiting around."

Hermione cried out in distress.

"You can count yourself lucky," admonished Scrimgeour. "The Ministry has to be seen to take appropriate action. Frankly, I'm keeping it down to expulsion because I'm giving you points for having the gumption to blackmail Rita!"

Harry flashed a look at Professor McGonagall: she wasn't going to accept it, was she? She was going to fight, surely? But he saw that she looked almost tearful and he knew the answer – there was nothing she could do. She could not argue against the judgment. Hermione had admitted too many awful things. In telling the complete and sordid truth to gain unquestioned credibility as a Veritaserum case so that she could protect Harry, Hermione had condemned herself to one of her worst fears: expulsion and academic disgrace.

Muggleborn Hermione - so desperately keen to fit in and be accepted, frenetically trying to be more wizard than a wizard, cleverer than the cleverest so she could prove she _deserved_ to be at Hogwarts – had toppled over into scandal, ignominy, rejection and shame.

Hermione, shocked, turned to Professor McGonagall, possibly believing that it was the Professor who had somehow helped her avoid the Veritaserum. "But you can't get rid of me," her voice was spiraling now, "I - I'm the cleverest student here, everyone knows that! You need me!"

The room went horribly quiet with Hermione staring about in a kind of bright, hard desperation, but Harry knew that no one student was bigger than Hogwarts.

McGonagall drew herself up to her full height; in her black robes and hat, she looked somehow taller than she was. Her deliberation was somehow ominous. The room stilled completely. The paintings hushed. Scrimgeour watched coolly. Even Hermione's voice had fluttered to a halt.

Professor McGonagall was white-faced apart from pink tinge about her flared nostrils. When her words came they were very definite.

"You are expelled."

A shivering and sobbing Hermione had to be escorted from the room. It was the second time in a few days that Harry had seen her ejected from a safe harbour. The first time, at The Burrow, he had not been able to tell whether she had been crying, this time it was very clear: she was. Harry knew without even having to calculate it that tomorrow's _Daily Prophet_ would carry smug, smirking headlines about this whole incident, the whole of the wizarding world having its laugh at Hermione's expense, not realising what she'd won for them: she'd protected Harry, she'd protected the prophecy.

Against the far wall, his eye was caught by the glint of the Gryffindor sword, as if it were asking, 'Am I worth it?'

X X X

McGonegall and Scrimgeour swept out, even the paintings hurriedly departed to screech about Scrimgeour's caddish behaviour.

It was the ideal time.

Flicking his Cloak off and momentarily laying aside his knapsack and broom, Harry lunged across the office and went to grab the handle of the sword-cabinet.

"I really wouldn't do that if I were you."

Horrified, Harry whirled to see Phineas Nigellus, one black eyebrow raised, arms crossed, shoulder leaning elegantly against the frame of his portrait. He had been sidling just out of view at the side of his canvas.

"Professor Dumbledore sealed that cabinet with a _very_ powerful protective charm," drawled Nigellus. "If you open it, even touch it, even try in any way to move the cabinet, then instantly sirens will go off, the room will be sealed and you will be subject to Petrificus Totalus – Invisibility Cloak or not."

Nigellus watched Harry with cool speculation, almost weighing him up. "So, you're not in the protective fold of the Ministry after all? I rather thought not, hardly your style: typical Gryffindor, too stupid to know when discretion is the better part of survival." He surveyed Harry. "For example, take that little friend of yours: running off at the mouth even after you'd switched the Veritaserum."

Harry started.

"Saying damning things about herself when she didn't have to. She was covering for you, wasn't she? It was all about hiding information on that prophecy. All about hiding whatever had happened to you and Albus, that night. So, Potter, now that you're 'on the run', what's so important about the sword?"

Harry gawped. He simply could not think up a good enough lie fast enough.

"Do close your mouth, Potter, I can see your tonsils, not a pretty sight. Would it help if I gave you another few minutes to think up a decent deception? You Gryffindors never were any good at on-the-spot dissimulation – not clever enough. I can only imagine that your deceptive little friend must have been a Ravenclaw who had somehow managed to become horribly mis-sorted."

Harry's gaze lurched toward the sword again, his mouth felt very dry, he had to make his mind up, he had to do something. He recalled Phineas Nigellus' earlier admonishments to the other paintings, that they had to start fighting to defeat Voldemort, that Nigellus had lost his descendents.

"The sword is crucial in defeating Voldemort."

Nigellus' eyes widened fractionally, eyebrows lifting. "Crucial in what way?"

"I'm not telling you."

Nigellus ignored Harry's rude response and looked away to one side, head tilted, pondering. He became coolly reflective, then looked back, eyes narrowed, "Is it a Horcrux? That would explain a lot."

Harry panicked. _What? Why did every member of the Black family he met seem to know about Horcruxes!_

"How do you know? I mean – it's not that!"

"Oh, be quiet boy, have you forgotten that I and every other portrait here listened to Professor Dumbledore tell you about them? Now, speak. We may only have minutes before Professor McGonagall returns." Nigellus considered, his words now came rapidly, "Though I did suspect unseemly business with the sword when I saw Albus using the Revelus spell on it."

"The Revelus …?"

"It's the spell which reveals if an object is a Horcrux. I didn't question him of course, if he chose not to tell me the details, I assumed it was best not to know."

Harry's throat felt very dry, "The sword, was it … did it?"

"No, it wasn't a Horcrux."

Harry swiveled toward the sword with a terrible, plummeting disappointment. The sword wasn't …? But he'd been _depending_ on it!

He swiveled back to Nigellus, "It _is_ a Horcrux! _You're lying!"_

"Oh do try and hold on to your manners, Potter, as tattered as they may be in your case. Why on earth would I lie about it, you rash, silly boy?"

Harry felt a crash of disappointment. He remembered what Hermione had said: checking the sword would have been the first thing Professor Dumbledore would have done, of course it couldn't have been a Horcrux.

"Why are you here by yourself, snooping?" snapped Nigellus. "Why don't you just ask for Professor McGonagall's help, you idiotic go-it-alone Gryffindor!"

Harry had a stumbling recollection of something Professor Dumbledore had said, that a student who asked for help would always get it within Hogwarts. In utter extremis, Harry had shouted for help before and the Sorting Hat had swooped to his aid.

"For heaven's sake, of all the hundreds of thousands of students who've ever passed through here," snapped Nigellus, "why does the fate of the wizarding world have to end up in _your _hands!"

_All the hundreds of thousands of students who've ever passed through here …_ and the Sorting Hat had sorted every one. The Sorting Hat …

Harry wrenched it onto his head and concentrated fiercely, _"I need you to help me. Tell me, who had the initials R.A.B?"_


	17. Chapter 17

Title: (Chapter 17)   
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. 

Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 

**Chapter 17**

It felt like night-time even though it was mid-morning. It always felt like night-time in this place. It didn't help that they were actually underground, in a large stone vault hacked into the rock beneath a decrepit house in the north of England.

The North – full of weird accents and chip-shops selling things called 'mushy peas'. Not even real peas – _mushy_ ones! Good Lord, couldn't Northerners even chew their own food properly? They had to have it pre-mushed for them? Not to mention that – that _stuff_ Terry Boot drank, _Dandelion and Burdock_ Honestly! _Dandelions!_ Couldn't they make a drink up out of anything else? Probably trampled the plants in their tin baths with their own feet– not even taking their hobnailed boots off first!

It was with such vaguely random, slightly hysterical thoughts that Draco Malfoy stood in the vault and attempted to squash down his all-too-real fears.

Malfoy was standing below the Death Eater manor and he was not alone.

"The Dark Lord ordered me to bring you here, Draco. Do you know why you have been ordered to the Chamber of Ceremonies?"

"The chamber of…?" Malfoy looked about him, his voice querulous with a half-laughing, anxious disbelief. "Snape, it's a _cellar!_"

"Draco, I repeat: I have brought you here at the Dark Lord's behest." Snape's voice carried an underlying tension – Malfoy tried to tell himself he couldn't hear it. "If you have done anything untoward … You are young, whatever you have done cannot be so very bad, he may be prepared to forgive youthful foolishness far more than active deception. If you have committed anything unseemly, I sincerely advise you to confess to him."

Had he done something untoward or unseemly? How about gate-crashing the Weasley wedding without clearance from anyone, when he knew perfectly well that the Dark Lord had said that he wanted nothing amiss!

Malfoy put a hand to his pocket and felt the comforting shape of the small crystal vial which held the very last of his Felix Felicis. The vestige of one last dose left: the very last of his luck. Should he use it now? But it never seemed to have worked before – well, except for getting away from the Aurors. But then he might yet get out of this immediate situation without it. And if he did that, he'd have wasted the Felicis for nothing. He only had one more go at it, and for all he knew, he might need it for an even worse situation later!

But then how much worse could it get than the Dark Lord somehow discovering one more awful secret: that he'd dragged Virgin-Pants Potter out of The Burrow, away from the Aurors, and then _let the stupid bastard go!_

God, the annoying, speccy-faced, Sectumsempra-hurling git! 

He could hardly believe he was protecting Potter.

God, Potter was a worthless little twank! Not to mention all that stuff about the Felicis not working because he hadn't really wanted it to … 

Potter! The insufferable little git! And okay, at the Reception, Potter had lost-it over having hit him with the _Sectumsempra_, when Ginny Weasley had – had – she had _stormed_ at him! Said 'he'd had it coming'!

He felt his breath grow short: Potter was getting it all so_ easy!_ It just wasn't _fair!_ And he had to try and try and – _get nowhere!_

Bloody. Potter.

It was all Potter's fault. It was always Potter's fault! And sure, at the wedding, Potter had said that his use of _Sectumsempra_ had been a terrible thing, but it was all very well doing that after the fact, wasn't it? Moral posturing was a cheap salve – when you'd already done the dirty deed and the juicy reward couldn't be taken from you! _And_ he now had the burden of knowing all about the Horcrux-bomb, thanks to blabber-mouth Potter and to Granger's stupid note-taking.

"_Draco! _I am talking to you! Have you been listening to me at all?"

Malfoy jerked to attention and tried to cover for his lost concentration. "Why should I? You've got nothing to say!"

"Draco, attend to me. Your situation is perilous -"

Perilous? Why would anyone think he wanted to know that? He didn't want to know about it. He didn't want to think about it. He didn't -

_And bloody Granger!_

Granger! Always bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet with her hand in the air – desperate to win teacher's approval! That was the worst bloody thing about Mudbl – about Mudb – about sodding Muggleborns like her: they were so damned scared of being singled out as 'not proper wizarding stock' that they tried extra hard to fit in! Didn't she understand that all that wizardlier-than-thou stuff just annoyed people? Of course she didn't. She didn't have any real sense. Only she could actually list something as sensitive as that Horcrux information and then leave the manuscript lying about! The stupid little -!

"_DRACO!"_

Malfoy jolted to attention.

"Draco, you are in a very hazardous position. The Dark Lord is angry – I can _sense_ it. And he has asked to see you." Snape's next words came in an hiss, "_He never does a thing without reason."_

Malfoy refused to allow himself to even _blink _at that. His fingers tightened about the vial. Maybe he should use the last of his luck now, after all?

He had so much to hide. And on top of it all, he'd just tried to clear that mess up at Hogwarts, it was –

His mind shifted, an Occlumens trick he'd taught himself.

Instead of using Aunt Bella's method of trying to feel nothing, he had devised his own: to concentrate extremely hard on one all-encompassing but essentially meaningless thing. The rest – whatever was otherwise on your mind – simply faded away. Poker was a good one: the minutiae of the cards, its art of bluff and counter bluff. Poker: a bluffer's game. You weren't playing the cards with Poker: you were playing the man opposite you, it didn't matter what your hand was so much as what your opponent _believed_ it was.

He couldn't imagine why others found Occlumens so hard. One simply decided not feel a certain thing. That was all. It was hardly difficult.

Snape's black-hued eyes now stared, brows drawing together in concentration and effort. But Malfoy's silver-grey ones sheened like mirrors, they could not be stared into or through, only _at_.

Malfoy gave a cracked half-laugh, "Can't do it, can you?"

Not even Snape could get in.

A new confidence, and his fingers stopped gripping the vial.

Snape's mouth compressed into a straight line, "Does the Dark Lord fully know of your skill in Occlumens, Draco?" Silence in response. "Are you sure that you can withstand _him_? Take my advice: never lie to the Dark Lord. Never tell an actual lie."

Malfoy's mouth quirked in something which looked like sneering contempt, but in his mind he added another few more layers of obscurity over some very uncomfortable truths.

"Draco," a slight softening in Snape's tone, "I can think of times not so long ago when you used to call me Professor and look up to me."

"Well, not now, Snape. You spied for the Dark Lord against that deluded old duffer, Dumbledore. Why should I respect you now? Spies are liars. Even their own side don't really trust them. Why should they? They _know_ the person is a practiced liar."

Snape took an abrupt step forward, "I did what was necessary. Sometimes one finds oneself in positions where – one makes decisions which cannot -"

"Oh shut up." Malfoy then aped a vaguely whinging, wheedling voice, "_I did what was necessary. __It's not my fault, I had to do it, circumstances made me. _That's what all the nutters say." Despite himself, his voice was growing heated. "You're a spy, which means you're both a liar and a coward!"

"Do _not _call me coward."

"Oh cut it out. You murdered a sick, tired, pathetic old man who wasn't thinking straight and who didn't even have his wand and -"

"And _WHY_ didn't the Professor have his wand?" Snape stepped forward, suddenly steam-heated. "_Because you took it off him!"_

Malfoy took an abrupt, blinking, shocked step back.

"You got the Death Eaters in!" Snape hurtled on. "You disarmed the Headmaster! You started it. I only did what I did had to do to finish it! I had to _kill_ because you got yourself into a mess! Good people have made sacrif -" the ex-Potions master's voice fractured slightly, "_sacrifices_ for you, Draco! You owe a debt. Don't dodge responsibility. Either accept what you did or live to try and change it – _but don't tell yourself that none of it was your fault!"_

At those last furious words it was hard to say who was more shocked, Malfoy or Snape himself. There was a bottled up silence, and then –

"My father -!"

"Your father is a man of ill-faith – and the greatest mistake you make, Draco, is to assume he holds you in any more regard than he holds any other man! You would be wise to be on your guard against your father!"

"My father is -!"

- a popping sound and the rustle of silken robes as a figure Apparated from the dark even as their words rang in the air.

Malfoy swiveled toward the newly-appeared Voldemort. _How much had he just heard?_.

Other cloaked shapes emerged from the dark, evidently many were gathering in the 'Chamber of Ceremonies'.

The Death Eaters silently arranged themselves in a large horseshoe shape; Snape and Draco Malfoy stood somewhat isolated at the open end of the arc with Voldemort near them.

Voldemort signaled Snape with a shift of his head and beckoned him to move aside. Draco Malfoy was now standing alone.

And trying to suppress a terrified, squealing panic.

_What was all this about?_

Voldemort turned and gazed at Malfoy as though he was measuring Malfoy for size, seeing if he somehow 'fitted' … or weighing him up to eat.

"I believe you were discussing your father, Draco?"

Draco Malfoy couldn't answer. He found it impossible to force his gaze to meet Voldemort's. He was simply too frightened. However, he utterly refused to give himself away by swallowing, though he found he didn't have to: his mouth and throat had gone completely dry. If he had thought of using the last of the Felicis, it was too late now. Too late to sup the last if it without being seen. Too late to avoid trouble by using luck – because the trouble had already started!

_What had the Dark Lord heard?_

"It is an admirable thing for a boy to respect and obey his father," Voldemort's voice then grew clipped, " – if that father is worthy." The gaze of his horrid, flickering-red eyes traveled over Malfoy's smooth, pale, averted face. "But is Lucius worthy, Draco? He has failed me repeatedly, but yet … he has paid me handsomely aforehand." His dry, scaly, cracked and burnt-looking hand reached out and his finger-tips stroked Malfoy's face; his burnt skin oddly silky. "He has already pledged me the best of all he had."

Snape stiffened slightly at that, but Voldemort had already whirled on his heel, looking about at his ranged Death Eaters as Malfoy remained frozen.

"My Death Eaters, I am displeased."

Malfoy's head jerked. He was staring straight ahead like a pointer-dog after the gun has gone off. Then he staggered slightly and flung out his arms for balance as beneath him, the floor shifted. Some of the stone flags rose up to form a low, square platform on which Malfoy now stood. He lurched slightly as the platform rose.

Standing on the platform gave him every appearance, and every feeling, that he was in the dock at a court trial.

Voldemort's voice lowered as he addressed his Death Eaters, "I am never pleased by disloyalty or stupidity, I find that punishment is often appropriate as a deterrent to others." His voice then shifted into a coldness like the chink of metal as he turned to face Malfoy, "I will not have followers who do not obey me." He turned back to the Death Eaters, his voice ringing out an announcement: "We are here for a trial."

_Oh hell!_

Draco Malfoy looked like he was unconsciously preparing to run.

One of the Death Eaters shifted uncomfortably, a skein of tangled black hair trailing from beneath her cowl – Malfoy instinctively knew it was Aunt Bellatrix.

"Where were you last night, Draco?" Voldemort's voice was silky.

_Last night …? Oh. Just. Bloody. Great! Last night he'd been at that hole, The Burrow._

Away from Malfoy, Snape shifted slightly. Malfoy flicked him an unwilling sideways glance and remembered: _never tell an actual lie _…

Occluding veils were imagined. Games of Poker where there was bluff and counter-bluff … but sometimes there was _triple_-bluff.

There was a bated pause before finally Malfoy answered. "I was -" his voice stumbled for a second, but then he grew certain: the Dark Lord could only be asking because he already knew. Lying at this point would be fatal. "I was escaping Aurors at that dump, The Burrow."

A rustle of robes sounded throughout the room. Death Eaters shot each other startled glances from behind the eye holes of their masks.

"I am glad you readily confessed that, Draco. I knew you were there -"

Malfoy stiffened – _Thank God he'd guessed right!_

"- had you been foolish enough to lie, it would have gone badly for you."

_But how had the Dark Lord known?_

Taking in the boy's pale expression, Voldemort congratulated himself and allowed one of his concise, lipless smiles. "But then again, Draco, you are not a fool: one of the commendable things about you. So, do tell me, what were you doing at The Burrow?"

_Grubbing through girls' knickers …_

For a split second, Malfoy nearly laughed hysterically but corrected himself, "I was having a laugh at that Weasley wedding, then I got caught up in that love potion thing."

"Even though you knew I wanted no suspicious activity on the part of the Death Eaters?"

"Well -" Hell, he had said that, _more or less_ … "The Ministry doesn't take me seriously as a Death Eater."

True.

"And were you successful, Draco?" Voldemort was almost amused; on a face like that, amusement was sinister.

A pause, and then something slightly stubborn in the delivery, "No."

"Instead, far from being successful, indeed you were nearly caught?"

_How much did he know?_

But sometimes you could win a Poker hand with a handful of nothing, it depended on what you could make the other person _believe_ …

"I got away, didn't I?" His cry was slightly desperate. "Well, I mean, there's no such thing as 'nearly caught', is there? You're either caught or you're not, there's no in-between. If you miss being caught by an inch it's as good as by five miles."

A slight gasp from the Death Eaters. It was almost unheard of to have anyone even attempt to answer back to the Dark Lord.

Voldemort appraised him, eyes narrowing, expression stiffening. "You are lucky that is an attitude I share, Draco." He spoke again, "And how did you escape, Draco?"

_Because I used Potter-face as body-armour._

Malfoy knew that if Voldemort found out that he had purposefully let Potter go, then he wouldn't get out of this cellar alive. But the Dark Lord was asking a lot of very pointed questions … if he knew about The Burrow then he knew that Malfoy had nabbed Potter … it would be fatal to tell an actual lie.

"I - I was Polyjuiced as a Ministry Official. Then it all went off and I got -" he swallowed as he took an irrevocable step, "I got Harry Potter and I used him as body-armour."

Voldemort did not even react. In contrast a flurry of gasps went around the Death Eaters: _Draco Malfoy had engaged in all this – remarkable in itself – and had then held Harry Potter prisoner and had not told the Dark Lord?_ There would surely be a fierce punishment.

Malfoy looked about with a nervous expression.

"And where is the Potter brat now, Draco?"

"Aren't you even interested to find out about Potter and the Aurors? They were trying to grab him!" Malfoy sounded faintly wheedling.

"Do not attempt to deflect me." The words dropped with the sizzle of acid. "Where is the Potter brat? Do not lie to me, Draco."

Do not _lie _…

Malfoy looked at him fully, "He got away using a Portkey."

Entirely true_ … never tell an actual lie …_

Malfoy's words barreled on quickly, as though he was too alarmed to think, "Well – well I wasn't _planning_ to hold someone prisoner!" He sounded as though he was complaining that he wanted a second go at aiming a Bludger because he hadn't 'been ready' the first time. "I didn't know I would get Potter. It was complete opportunism when I picked him up! Anyway, it's not like I'm the first one he's ever escaped from." Malfoy glared at the figure to his right, "Snape was with him for six years and he did nothing!"

All of which was quite true.

"Draco, this is not about Severus, this is about you. Although you had Potter, you _lost _him?"

"He grabbed a Portkey out of mid-air! I'm not the first he's escaped from!"

Another gasp sounded about the Death Eaters. The Dark Lord looked angry but distracted. Malfoy swallowed and carried on hurriedly, "Anyway, if I hadn't gone to the wedding, Potter would still be stuck in at the Ministry where you couldn't reach him - at least I've flushed him out. He was about to be held prisoner by the Aurors!"

"I already knew that, Draco." Malfoy blinked at Voldemort's words –_ the flickering deck of a shuffling pack_ … Voldemort continued, "but it does not materially affect the fact that you had Potter and that he then escaped you."

"Potter can withstand the Imperius and I haven't had the practice with a Crucio!"

Completely true.

"_What?"_ At that, Voldemort turned curtly to one of the masked Death Eaters. "Bellatrix? I requested that you tutor Draco in use of the Cruciatus, and you did not?" There was silence throughout the chamber. "I require an answer, Bellatrix!"

"I – I did not think it was wise."

"Not _wise?"_

"The Cruciatus is a spell that would have attracted attention had Draco used it at Hogwarts." Bellatrix was breathy with apprehension. "It would have – it would have -" she floundered for an explanation – "it would have set the wards off! Draco would have had to explain how he knew the curse. Questions would have been asked. Your plans could have come to light!"

Malfoy's gaze darted between Voldemort and his aunt.

Voldemort ignored her explanation.

"I required that Draco be taught the Cruciatus and you decided that you knew better? You chose to deny Draco the basic tool for torture?"

"I don't – I didn't think Draco needed to become a torturer. He isn't -"

"I don't require you to _think_, Bellatrix," Voldemort's voice cut like a broken bottle, "_I require you to obey!" _He whipped his wand into his hand and jabbed it at Bellatrix and -

"I lost Potter!" Malfoy gulped the words out and Voldemort whirled back toward him, distracted. Bellatrix twitched. "I lost Potter but -" Malfoy _had_ to go on now – "but he's got friends!"

"Special friends? Are you saying that if we cannot catch Potter, we can lure him out by making a hostage of one of his friends?"

Draco Malfoy swallowed at Voldemort's words and stared straight ahead, but having begun, he could not stop now. He'd put a card on the table, he couldn't grab it back now.

"Draco, who would you suggest as a useful target?"

A pause.

They were all complete prats, but - but they had been at school with him …

"Draco …?"

- he had to give up _someone!_

"Ron Weasley."

"Weasley you say? What of the Mudblood filth, Granger? Might she be of more use?"

"No! – I mean - I don't see why. Plenty of people think he was just 'friends' with her so she'd do his homework for him. I don't know if she was ever a true confidante." No lies there – not from a certain point of view. "Anyway, it's in the papers that she's Head Girl at Hogwarts, she's safe at the school."

"Really? I have it on excellent authority that Miss Granger was expelled this morning."

Malfoy's expression froze. Snape shifted involuntarily. Voldemort shifted to glance at him, "I have other sources than you for matters at Hogwarts, Severus." Voldemort smiled, turning to the stiff-backed Malfoy, "You see, Draco, there are things you _don't_ know." He considered, musing. "We could attempt to snatch the Bloodfilth, Granger. She may not be close to Potter but that's hardly a reason to spare her …" He grew reflective, "Who else is important to Potter, Draco?"

_He wanted even more names …?_

"Nobody. He's not what you could call 'sociable'." Malfoy almost gabbled the words out.

"The Weasley brother and sister were at the Department of Mysteries," Voldemort said, "but we know about them. But also there were Neville Longbottom and a further girl. Are they friends of Potter, Draco?"

_What? Lummox Longbottom and that weirdo little Ravenclaw? But they were completely harmless!_

Malfoy shook his head frantically. "I don't know anyone at school who thinks so." And that was true. His voice was quick and breathy. "I was there when Umbridge rounded that lot up. Those two only got roped into the Department of Mysteries mess by accident. From what I saw, Potter barely spoke two words together to Longbottom last year."

All true.

"And what of the other girl?"

Malfoy stared straight at Voldemort, "Well, put it this way: she's no classical beauty. I certainly don't fancy her."

Which from Malfoy's perspective was entirely true.

"Hmmm … and then we come to Ginny Weasley."

Malfoy froze utterly. 

"The Weasley girl is useful," mused Voldemort. "She is a pureblood, young and tender … and the young always have their uses. At the Department of Mysteries, Potter was prepared to hand over the Prophecy Orb for the Longbottom boy. Think what he might do for a girl who was important to him? His girlfriend is Ginny Weasley …"

"_NO!"_ Malfoy's voice shot out before he could control himself. "She's – _she's not his girlfriend! _She love potioned him! Everyone knows that!"

Voldemort shot him a chilling glance. Even Malfoy knew he was on thin ice now.

"And what if all this juvenile love potion nonsense is simply a huge bluff to protect the Weasley girl?" Voldemort spat. "Have you considered that? If Potter really cared for her, he would _have _to engage in such a childish charade!"

"It was a _Potion!"_ Malfoy yelped uncontrollably.

_God, could he just shut his mouth? Because he wasn't just on thin ice now – the ice was starting to crack!_

Voldemort's gaze bored into Malfoy.

"You'd be wasting your time in chasing after her!" Malfoy blurted. "He doesn't fancy her! Kidnapping her? Risking your people getting caught for _nothing_? That's just _stupid!"_

Had he said_ 'stupid'?_ Christ, what was he doing? He was no longer _on_ thin ice, he'd just put his foot straight through!

There were shocked gasps from all the Death Eaters.

"Draco," Voldemort's voice was so cold it burned. "Draco, have you ever witnessed a Crucio?"

Malfoy's thoughts stopped. Voldemort's voice had been so very still. An involuntary shiver ran around the room, in some cases of fear and in others … of excitement. Malfoy stared straight ahead. Voldemort raised his wand, gazing at Malfoy, preparing to strike, looking where to place the spell.

"Horcruxes."

Malfoy shivered the word out.

Voldemort's red eyes narrowed as he fixed upon Malfoy, his wand still poised. Malfoy swallowed, voice shaking. "They are after your Horcruxes."

If anything was going to stop the Dark Lord dead, that was it.

There was a flurry of surprise throughout the Death Eaters …

Voldemort ignored it, his attention was upon Malfoy.

"How do you know about that?"

"Potter told me." Malfoy's words were quick, nervously keeping the situation moving forward, pushing them past the point of attack, gaze flicking to Voldemort's wand which had not yet fired and then back to Voldemort again. "He thought I'd then see how important the whole issue was and switch sides. Needless to say, he's never understood me."

All very true – and all very true without mentioning Granger and her stupid list even once.

There was an infinitesimal pause on Malfoy's part before he continued, "I only just found out." True – more or less. "I know that they've destroyed two of your Horcruxes already: the diary as destroyed by Potter and some old ring as destroyed by Dumbledore. They're now after a third Horcrux – Slytherin's locket. They thought it was in a cave, but what they found was a false locket that had been swapped for the real one ages ago. They don't know where the real one is or who stole it, but they're looking. They haven't really got anything."

"But … Horcruxes, My Lord?" Even the sound of his voice told you that Wormtail was wringing his hands. "I knew you had the diary … but more than one?"

"I had not one Horcrux - but five!"

A puzzled expression flickered across Malfoy's face but it was gone before anyone saw it.

Death Eaters scattered looks: some had known he had one Horcrux, others had not even known that – none had known he had five!

"Five! Each held in five precious objects, the sixth part of my soul within myself. But what happened? I entrusted the care of each separately among my _Most Faithful!_" Voldemort said those words in a voice thick with derision. "And what happens? First the diary is destroyed, then the one I entrusted to Bellatrix was _lost_ - outwitted by a foolish woman and two pathetic Aurors! Then I find that Dumbledore had a _burnt arm!_ I knew what that meant: my Horcruxed ring had been destroyed After that, I checked my other Horcruxes and they were both gone – the Slytherin locket" – Death Eaters gasped – "and the Hufflepuff cup!"

His anger grew even as the Death Eaters shrank, "Failed by my '_Most Faithful'_! Failed by my Purebloods! _All five of my Horcruxes are either endangered or already destroyed!" _

The Death Eaters did not even dare to flick glances between them. The Dark Lord was in a rage.

Voldemort became furiously calculating, almost muttering to himself. "But I can still make yet one more Horcrux, and as even one Horcrux can preserve me …" He rounded upon Snape, his voice cold, "Severus, I do hope you have had success in finding that box?"

Malfoy's gaze flicked to Snape.

"I – I have not yet retrieved it, My Lord." Snape's head lowered, he stared at the floor.

"Time has become valuable, Severus." Voldemort's voice grew dangerously curt. "I want the box." Snape nodded. Voldemort persisted, "I don't enjoy failure - those who fail me, suffer." Voldemort looked about him. "And I did say that this was a trial. And so it is. And someone is guilty of failure and so they must be punished." He drew a breath and whirled, "_Crucio!"_

Malfoy involuntarily stiffened and a terrible screaming filled the air and echoed around the chamber.

Crucio'd, screaming and contorting, shrieking like a man on fire, at Death Eater fell to the floor.

Voldemort regarded his agony with utter dispassion.

"Now you see what a _Crucio_ is like Draco. Regard: a lesson your Aunt thought it _wise_," Voldemort shot a scathing look at Bellatrix, "not to teach you. You can use it to kill, you know? You simply don't take the spell off." He coolly put his wand away, indicating to all there that the spell would stand. He calmly regarded the screaming, shrieking, writhing wizard. "Travers failed me." He angled his head slightly toward Malfoy without removing his gaze from the agonized man. "As I said earlier: I am never pleased by disloyalty or stupidity and I find that punishment is often appropriate as a deterrent to others, if nothing else."

Voldemort spoke calmly as Travers' continuing screams tore through the air, his limbs flailing as he thrashed upon the ground. It was horrifying to watch and even worse to hear.

But Draco Malfoy did not jam his hands over his ears or close his eyes. Instead, he stared straight ahead, standing absolutely still. Stock still. Utterly expressionless. It was impossible to say whether he was indifferent, or frozen with horror lest he betray himself by descending into a mad screaming if he relaxed his self-control by so much as one inch.

Voldemort looked down at the screaming, writhing Travers. "Travers will die; hopefully the lesson will be learned and I shan't need to make other example from among my followers …"

Almost on cue there was a movement from a far corner and Draco Malfoy's hollowed gaze jerked to it as a door opened and a figure was escorted through.

It was a very pale Narcissa Malfoy.

Bellatrix Black instinctively shifted then stilled, almost forcibly restraining herself.

Voldemort smiled at Malfoy again, ignoring Bellatrix. "Your mother will remain with me as my … _guest_." His lipless smile was serene, "You owe debts, Draco - you really ought to pay them." Voldemort looked at Draco, "As Snape is preparing to redeem himself over the box, are you able to redeem yourself with the Horcruxes? In a race against Potter, you would have greater success in hunting those Horcruxes than any other of my Death Eaters." Voldemort obliquely indicated Narcissa Malfoy, "And greater motivation."

Narcissa looked away, red about her puffy-lidded eyes, she had clearly been crying and now she was ashamed that she had allowed herself to be maneuvered as a pawn against her son.

Malfoy looked away too, not wanting to burden his mother with the knowledge that he could see her shame.

Travers still screamed on the floor.

"You will become inured to such sights, Draco." Voldemort indicated the writhing Travers. "You will learn the detachment of the killer. You will kill, Draco. In the situations in which we find ourselves, it is inevitable if only to ensure our own survival."

At the corner of Malfoy's rigid gaze, he caught his mother's stare signaling him: she shook her head infinitesimally. He thought he was the only one who noticed, but then he saw Aunt Bella's round-eyed, fearful gaze flick back and forth between himself, Mother and Voldemort.

Aunt Bella had seen – but she stood silent and said nothing.

She was a Black. And that was the binding tie. Not magic. Not politics.

Unaware of the Black-family allegiances shifting about him, Voldemort angled his head toward Malfoy even as he remained gazing contemplatively at the screaming, thrashing Travers. "There is no good and evil, Draco, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it … Do not be afraid of killing, Draco. It is only a tiny fracture in the soul, the tiniest crack, the tiniest gap, like a little doorway. With Dumbledore's death you have already seen death, Travers will not be the first …"

And Malfoy blinked and his eyes widened slightly, because he had seen death … but at the Burrow, he hadn't been able to see Thestrals …

He'd been staring straight at Dumbledore when Snape had murdered him. So if he couldn't see Thestrals … well, one solution was that there was still hope that Dumbledore was not yet dead!


	18. Chapter 18

Title: (Chapter 18)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. 

Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Chapter 18**

"This has been a complete wipe-out," spat Ron. "We've come all this way, and we've got nothing.No pensieve message, no Horcrux – and now Hermione's been _expelled!"_

The Ceremony of Expulsion had been a nasty, overbearing event with everyone present in the totally silent Great Hall and Hermione up on some platform like she was on trial. They'd snapped her wand, ripped her school badge off her robes, struck her name from the school record – the lot. She'd even lost Crookshanks, who'd had to stay at the school because he was part magical.

Expulsion from Hogwarts was expulsion from society really.

"You didn't even get the _sword!" _hissed Ron.

"How?" Harry complained. "It was guarded by security spells. I couldn't even touch it."

"Then how did you know it was guarded if you couldn't touch it!"

How could he tell Ron that he'd taken the word of Phineas Nigellus on such an important matter? Ron would implode with furious disbelief.

"Er … a portrait … Ph- Oh - _Armando Dippet told me!"_

It was mid-morning and they were in the Hogwarts grounds, each under Invisibility Cloak. They had stayed for the ceremony – it was unthinkable that they would desert – but overnight they had not been able to reach Hermione in the girls' dorm and now they had missed her as she had been swept from the school immediately after the expulsion.

"And on top of all that – last night you try to tell me that Hermione was right after all and that R.A.B. was a Death Eater!"

"It's him! He's the only R.A.B. who's dates fit. Hermione was right about all that Death Eater stuff she came out with. The note-writer _did_ call Voldemort 'the Dark Lord'. He _did_ only write his initials so Voldemort knew who he was. It's obvious. She was right!"

"Oh, give over!" Ron shook himself like dog shaking off unwanted water.

"It was Regulus Arcturus Black! It can't be anyone else!"

"Sirius said he was a -"

"Sirius said he thought the Death Eaters had killed his brother after he'd gotten in too deep with them _and then tried to get out_. And in a way, that was true!"

"He was a Slytherin devious git, there's _no way_ -"

Harry fished about for something - anything - to distract Ron from going off on one. "Look, Ron, let's go to Godric's Hollow like we said we would. Let's do it now." Frankly, Harry wasn't at all sure he even wanted to go and see his parents' cold graves, but he couldn't take any more questioning right now and – "Look, it won't take long, an hour at most if we hurry. Hermione will be at the Ministry to officially de-register. We can't reach her anyway until she's gone home. We'll catch up with her then!"

Ron grimly silenced and both boys then left Hogwarts, able to get past the guard-spells on the gates by sneaking out as Percy left – Percy had been the official Ministry record-keeper at the ceremony. At the open gates, Percy had taken a last look back, taking in the whole of Hogwarts. He looked somewhat sad. Harry was very glad he could not see Ron's hidden expression right then – no doubt it would be furious.

X X X 

In his imagination, Harry had seen Godric's Hollow as a picturesque hamlet or village, but in reality it proved to be a small town made of solid, slate houses with small gardens and hawthorn hedges. A river ran down the valley and through the town itself. A railway track and a canal each followed it, with an old Victorian station in the town. Although Muggles now used diesel or electric trains, here a steam train and well-tended carriages sat in a tidy, weed-free siding, tended by an amateur Railway Society which ran special trips for people on Saturday afternoons. A Victorian aqueduct strode across the valley to the East, carrying the canal which sailed over the green vale. In the Summer, horse-drawn canal-barges carried people on trips.

The town was not pretty or twee, but it was tidy, workmanlike and very solid. There was nothing dreamlike about it, not the way Harry had once viewed Ottery St. Catchpole. Godric's Hollow was very real. People actually had jobs, for one thing. A lot of them worked in the chocolate factory across in the next valley.

It didn't seem possible that the place could have been the site of a vicious double murder sixteen years ago.

Harry and Ron – Invisibility Cloaks wrapped around brooms, bags over shoulders, hats pulled low over their foreheads to hide both Harry's scar and Ron's notable hair – hurried through the streets heading toward the quiet churchyard at the edge of town, Ron was still angry and Harry was apprehensive.

Ron had bought a copy of the _Daily Prophet_ from a Wizard vendor and was nearly choking as he strode along, outraged, his voice constrained to a hiss, _"Look at this!"_

On the front page there was a salivating report of Hermione's expulsion: '_GRANGER EXPELLED! - Colin Creevey, cub reporter, gets the exclusive scoop from those who were actually there!' _

_Colin Creevey, cub reporter … ?_ Harry had forgotten Colin's role as a sneak.

"It's not even been two hours!" muttered Ron, furious as he tore along the pavement. "They must have held back this morning's edition until they could get the coverage in! They're bloody well _loving_ this!"

Harry took a quick scan of the article. Other than details of the actual ceremony – which could have just as easily been gotten from history books – there was no real news. Instead, the artical blathered on about how it had been fifty years since the last expulsion which had taken place in circumstances surrounding the Chamber of Secrets. The rest of the article – written by Rita Skeeter - was just gossip.

'_Popular and pretty student, Marietta Edgecombe (daughter of hard-working Ministry Official, Louisa Edgecombe), was scarred for life by Granger's vicious meddling. Sources say that Cho Chang – the pretty and clever daughter of entrepreneur Li Chang, and the girl who was Harry's first proper girlfriend - rowed with Harry over Hermione Granger's unhealthy influence over him. Granger could have been meddling in Harry's love-life for years. No doubt she would deny it, but who can trust her now? She's a liar and a deceiver! No-one should believe a word she says about anyone!'_

Rita was clearly taking pre-emptive steps to blacken Hermione in case Hermione spoke up about Rita's highly illegal Animagus status. Harry recalled that Rita Skeeter had interviewed him that time in _The Three Broomsticks_ and Hermione had taunted Rita by saying 'yes, yes, one of these days you'll write more horrible stories about Harry and me'.

Well, she'd been right – Rita was, and how.

"That paper's just a rag!" hissed Ron.

But Harry recalled Marietta's scarred face. Had Ginny Weasley's accusations been correct? Had Hermione really been aiming at Cho with the 'sneak' hex? It had been stupid in any case. Surely it would have been more useful if Hermione had gotten them all to sign up and then _told _them of the consequences of blabbing? Having them sign up and then _not_ tell them had robbed the hex of what should have been its true purpose: deterrence. Typical of Hermione – all brains and no strategy!

In a side bar hidden away on an inside page, Harry saw that a tragedy was reported: the death of the parents of a little girl. Apparently there had been a grisly, messy, nasty accident in which both parents had died, although their child, who had been the only other person present, had survived. The family name was Dupely.

"The _Daily Prophet_ has always been given to muck-raking!" snarled Ron. "Sometimes you've got to wonder who pays that editor of theirs!"

They hurried on, with Harry having to struggle to keep up with Ron's rapid, angry, stalk-like strides. Harry only jolted to a halt when he suddenly saw the church as he rounded a bend.

The place where his parents were buried.

As with Dumbledore's office, he had simply not thought about how he would _feel_ when he saw it. Now that he did feel it, he felt somehow swamped, his insides feeling suddenly very empty but at the same time feeling suddenly very choked up and full. He felt unable to move. He did not know what to _do_. But Ron had kept going, angrily muttering to himself, and Harry had no choice but to follow.

He had only really impulsively come here to distract Ron. But now that he was nearly there and they could see the grey stones of the churchyard, he felt uncomfortable and hesitant … now he was committed to going to see his parents' graves.

He felt suddenly frightened. Almost panicky. Now that he was here, he didn't _want_ to see the graves! What was he doing? What had he been thinking? He was almost digging his heels in as he walked. He wanted to turn around and go back. This was all wrong. Maybe they should just go and find Hermione now and -

_He didn't want to see the graves! He didn't want to have their deaths shoved in his face!_

"… and that bloody sister of mine, and Hermione kicking off, both of them just treat people as though they were …"

But Ron didn't have time to finish because a stunning sight greeted them: the unmistakable form of the greasy haired, beaky, sallow, thin, Severus Snape_ burrowing_ – like a filthy scrabbling animal – at a grave!

Harry was aghast, fear and apprehension momentarily knocked right out of him. Severus Snape, the spy who had wrought his parents' deaths and the murderer of Professor Dumbledore, he was _here?_

For three whole seconds Harry thought he was actually seeing things, it was only when Ron hissed and leapt forward that he realised it was all true.

The next thing Harry knew, he was hurtling down the path, outpacing Ron, fueled-up on pure rage, mind in a red fog, going straight at Snape.

He didn't even make any sound. There was no time or energy for shouting and yelling, it was just all about getting his hands around Snape's scrawny, scraggy throat and squeezing the life out of it until the red mist lifted. He didn't even think about going for his wand, it was just about killing Snape with his bare hands.

Concentrating on killing Snape was suddenly a very palatable alternative to dwelling on his parents' deaths.

Action blotted out thought.

He saw Snape's eyes fly wide as Snape's hands scrabbled something from out of a shallow dip he'd clawed in the grave: it flashed gold. Harry hardly noticed it, he was too busy aiming to kill Snape. He heard Ron panting behind him and then the clatter of a dropped broom as he flung aside his Firebolt so he could free himself fully and then he was in mid-air, both feet off the ground, hands like claws, eyes raging, mouth in a silent snarl, diving straight at Snape's throat.

Snape's face was a mask of utter astonishment – then he rolled to one side and fired off a shrieked spell: _"Impedimentia!"_

Harry was smashed backwards, landing with a sprawl. He saw Ron race past him, only to also be flung backwards by another spell hurled frantically by Snape.

Snape clawed himself to his feet clutching his wand and, in his other hand, grasping what Harry saw was a bejeweled metal box streaked with dirt – dirt from what he now saw was … _his own mother's grave!_

White rage seized him and he hurled himself at Snape again.

Snape's face was an appalled mask of pale shock as he shot Harry back with yet another spell and lurched for the cover of what was … _Harry's father's gravestone!_

That did it for Harry. The thought of that – that foul – that _thing_ – _hiding_ _like a coward behind his dad's _-

He started roaring and firing spells so hard that stone chips flew off his dad's grave marker. He repeatedly ran toward it, yelling, only to be repeatedly stopped by _Impedimentia_.

"Come out and fight! Come out and _fight, _you cowardly -"

Snape hit him with an Impedimentia so hard that it saw him fly ten feet through the air. Harry landed totally winded but still firing fusillades of vicious jinxes.

Harry raged, screaming,"Digging away at my mum's -! I saw your memory! _I saw what you called her!"_

Snape actually stood up at that. He looked like he was about to have a fit. Almost demented. Almost rabid. 

The flash and crack of wild spellfire.

"Black and James Potter? – _FOOLS! _Between them, they got your mother killed! Potter too foolish to believe their position had been betrayed and Black guilty of handing them over to Wormtail! Black knew he was guilty and he _wanted_ to suffer! Even when he got out of Azkaban, he still knew he deserved to die!_"_ Snape was roaring. "He may have had to go to the Ministry to save a stupid, rash, foolish boy, but when he was there–_ HE WANTED TO GO THROUGH THE VEIL!"_

There was the hissing of white noise. Harry's vision was actually darkening. What Snape had said was unsupportable, it was -

Harry reared up before he even knew what he was about, he had one spell pounding through his brain: Avada Kedavra, but what came out of his mouth was: "Stupefy."

The spell crashed into Snape's Protego and knocked him off his feet, the box toppling from his grip and rolling over and over.

Snape gathered himself and scrabbled toward the box as Ron shot at him. Harry, jolting into alarmed action, unthinkingly raced forward to grab it. Snape frantically righted, trying to reach it.

"_Accio _Box!" Harry screamed, and the heavy weight of it thumped into his chest as he caught it.

Snape lurched to his feet and desperately lunged after it.

"_Stup_ -" yelled Harry, now running at Snape as Ron simultaneously hurled an _Impedimentia_.

But Snape Disapparated before he could be shot and Harry was running so hard he actually slammed through the now empty air and into his father's gravestone. The impact brought him to a winded halt, the box flying from him as he slumped, waist-high, over the marker.

As abruptly as the astonishing, frantic, completely unpredicted firefight had begun, it had ended.

The air thrummed with the discharged energy of spellpower. There was the faint tang of ozone. But there was no noise. After the vicious, swirling hex-fight it would be a while before the birds would alight here again to sing.

But there were things to show that some surprising event had occurred: a dirt-smeared, jewel encrusted box lay toppled onto the grass, a shallow trench of ruptured turf and crude dirt marred the green grave of Harry Potter's mother.

Harry was in shock.

_Led to the Ministry by a stupid, rash foolish … wanting to go through the veil …?_

Then, furious anger: _Snape! Using his mother's grave to hide something!_ The _disgrace_ of it!

And worse … how was he supposed to win against Voldemort?

It was supposed to be him or Voldemort! One dead at the hand of the other! How was he supposed to save the world? _How was he supposed to kill Voldemort if he couldn't even try and kill Snape when avenging his Mum? All he could do was fling a Stupefy!_

He felt an hysterical edge of panic.

He couldn't win! He couldn't! 

His fists balled, his eyes screwed shut, he was so angry yet so unable to _do _anything – not even kill, it seemed.

Ron moved toward the dirt-smeared box, picking it up and gingerly wiping it off. It was heavy: gold with silver inlay. The sliver had tarnished to black but underneath its discolouration it was still a precious metal. It's carved relief and coarsely-cut emeralds and rubies, were rough and abrasive in the hands. If you held it for long enough it would press a pattern into you: mark you.

Ron was letting loose a string of invective against Snape, _"… filthy … cowardly … rotten … spy…"_

Harry was so numb and exhausted he couldn't even wonder at what the box was. He wasn't even sure it was a box, it was more like a brick. It didn't even seem to have a lid, there seemed no way to open it. He stared blankly at his parents' grave-markers. Snape wanted this brick – it must have been something to do with Voldemort. But he didn't even know how to cast that spell to see if the thing was a Horcrux.

Harry forced himself to stare at his dad's grave.

His dad had died believing that Sirius Black had betrayed him. There had been no time for the truth to out, no time to mend the bridges, death had gotten in the way. In turn, Sirius had died believing that his younger brother was a fool and a coward when Regulus Black had been the exact opposite: he'd been risking everything in a heroic solo effort to stop Voldemort. They had each died unreconciled, both fighting on the same side but not knowing it.

He recalled much of Hermione's behaviour last year: snappish, tense, even attacking Ron that time with those birds. She had behaved totally unlike her normal self, or maybe like her normal self but under extreme pressure. The pressure of knowing what she had been upto with Harry; she had been under the pressure of continual _guilt …_ She hadn't 'gone crazy' and then just randomly started potioning him – she'd 'gone crazy' _because_ she'd been potioning him.

"My dad died thinking that his best mate had betrayed him. Let's go get Hermione back before it's all too late."

If she would apologise for potioning him, he would apologise for making her feel as though she'd had to: but he had not killed Sirius, and she would have to agree that too.

They first Apparated to her parents' house in London – Ron knew the way – but it was empty. They hung around for a few hours but still she didn't show. They thought of going to the Ministry to see if she was there but they couldn't risk it. Instead they wondered where else Hermione might be, where would she go for comfort?

"Library," they said in unison.

Under cover of Invisibility Cloak they each Apparated to the London Wizarding Library as evening drew in – a huge, airy echoing dome built of marble, mahogany and brass, ensconced beneath the very similar dome of the British Library Reading Room which sat above it.

They scoured the library, but she wasn't there.

Ron was starting to swear – a sign that he was both angry and worried – and Harry was trying to ignore the increasing anxiety at being unable to locate her. Where _was_ she? She wasn't at home, she wasn't here, surely she couldn't still be at the school? She wasn't at the Ministry was she? Or worse … in Azkaban? At that he felt a terrible jolt to the heart. What if she was? If only they hadn't gone to Godric's Hollow! What if they'd just set off after her straightaway? What if -

"I don't believe it!" Ron was hissing with appalled disbelief. "_Look at this!"_

Ron was evidently holding something beneath his Cloak.

"Look at what?" hissed Harry. "You're invisible!"

There was a fumbling shuffle and Ron swept his Cloak over both of them, allowing Harry to see Ron holding a copy of that day's _Evening Prophet _that he'd found on a table. The front page was another Rita Skeeter article about Hermione. The wizard press were really milking the whole love potion and expulsion thing. Rita was making a fortune off it. Astoundingly, this time, there was even a photograph of Viktor Krum!

Harry took a worried look at Ron - he had always been totally paranoid about Krum.

Photo-Krum was looking saturnine and determined, chin tilted to the camera as the headline screamed: _Granger Offered Place At Durmstrang!_

Harry scanned the article: _The elite school of Durmstrang – infamous for its Slytherin associations - is willing to offer Granger a place as a pupil! Did Viktor Krum – one of Granger's ex-victims but try convincing HIM of that! – arrange the offer with the Durmstrang Headmaster? The precise whereabouts of the Muggleborn Granger are unknown but it is expected that the Muggleborn will be given a powerful new Gregorovich wand, her Ollivander wand having been shattered at her expulsion. This, when wizards of long-standing British wizarding stock are having to make do with supplies of inferior wands!'_

Hermione was with _Viktor?_

Ron's voice was a croak. "I always knew she'd dump me for someone better."

The paper slid from his fingers and fell to the floor.


	19. Chapter 19

Title: (Chapter 19)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 

**Chapter 19**

"I knew she'd dump me for someone better!" Ron's lack of self-belief had returned full-on.

"He's not 'better' than you, Ron, he's just," - _the greatest Seeker on the planet, rich, world-famous, a sports-god - _"different, that's all."

Harry was having to get them to the safety of their one remaining redoubt and the last known home of Regulus Black, 12 Grimmauld Place, and he hardly had the time to prop up Ron's tottering self-confidence. He had to expend his energies on other things: their survival for one. As well as Scrimgeour's Aurors and ranks of Death Eaters after them, they specifically had Snape's box and Snape knew it. The box must have been important, Snape must have been burrowing it out for a _reason_.

Harry seethed just thinking about that part.

Had he been the one to put it there in the first place? Was that how he had known it was there?

In any case, he would want it back.

"But I was her _boyfriend!_ That's _different!"_

Harry clamped his mouth shut and shoved an arm around Ron's shoulders, forcing him along the dingy street toward the traditional Black-family residence. "Oh come on, Ron, what was she supposed to do? Help came, she took it. _If _she took it. The article didn't say she was in Durmstrang, did it? It just insinuated a lot, that's all!"

"But he - she – they -"

"Oh come _on, _we can't dawdle!_"_

Yes, Snape would want that box back, surely?

_Especially after you went flat at him and then couldn't even fling an Unforgivable_.

And next time why wouldn't Snape bring accompanying Death Eaters? Surely he must only have been at that graveyard alone out of sheer hubris? Harry boiled with a fresh wrath: Snape had been befouling his mother's grave, and then _hiding_ behind his dad's gravestone even whilst he insulted his dad and Sirius!

With Ron moaning beside him, Harry was almost grateful for the distractingly sour recollection of Draco Malfoy's scathing assessment: that Ron and Hermione secretly didn't fancy each other but they were both too stubborn to admit it. Not to mention Ginny Weasley's accusation: that Hermione had settled for Ron out of insecurity.

Were they even suited?

He hauled Ron down the street.

Ron was easy-going, a bit lax, and liked his women feminine but also good-company. For heaven's sake: his type was Madam Rosmerta - sexy, bubbly - it was an open secret that he fancied her and she was the _anti_-Hermione! As for Hermione … she'd nag Ron to death trying to get him to meet her high standards. In the end she'd either grind him down or he'd be exploding with wrath whenever she opened her mouth – getting his retaliation in first. Ron needed an easy-going girl who, if she was ambitious, was ambitious for herself and wouldn't need an alpha-boyfriend to prop up her own ego!

But Hermione had gone out with two high-profile boyfriends before Ron: Krum and McLaggan. Well, not that McLaggan had been a real boyfriend considering she'd had to dose him to get him, but that was actually worse because she'd deliberately chosen McLaggan to annoy Ron. McLaggan, who was influential and confident: the anti-Ron. If she'd 'chosen' him, that meant she thought he was the sort of boy to be seen with?

Harry rather shamefully recalled the furious way he had shouted at Hermione in their fifth-year. Ron had done nothing to defend her, he'd simply taken Harry's side. Harry knew that if some boy had yelled at a girl who was special to _him_ – he'd have at least tried to defend her. He wouldn't have just _stood _there …

He recalled his own episode with Cho Chang: he'd been mooning after her for the best part of two years when he finally got that Christmas snog. But he hadn't gone out with her until months later; he'd hardly been racing for that first date. It had been nothing to do with her crying all over the place. Fact was, it had taken him months to actually face up to what he had known from first smooch … that when he finally got a taste, he just hadn't fancied her. That's all.

Maybe Ron and Hermione were like that?

He remembered that he'd had the chance to kiss Luna Lovegood just about the same time as he'd first kissed Cho Chang – his mind pored over the memory: she'd definitely discreetly angled to kiss him under that mistletoe, he was sure of it, but then … _a girl can go off a person, you know_ … _when we went to the Christmas party, you made it very clear that you were only inviting me as a friend …_ _You made it very clear that you weren't asking me out, I might not have gone if I thought you had been. I used to like you 'like that', Harry, but not any more._

God – she didn't even _fancy_ him!

Angry, he booted an empty lager-can out of his way.

X X X 

Sirius had once said that Kreacher had gone mad from being stuck at Grimmauld Place for years on end with only the deranged painting of Sirius' mother for company. As Harry rooted through a drawer looking for any R.A.B. clues, he listening to Kreacher work himself into a shrieking frenzy over a moved photograph and privately thought that it looked as though the cause must have been a lot more than that!

Number 12 Grimmauld Place was indeed a grim old place. Grey stone, dingy windows, even the silver doorknocker was badly tarnished: a heavy thing in the shape of an ornately-carved serpent curved in what was almost an 'S'. Oddly, it had reminded Harry of the snake he'd seen nailed to the door of the Gaunt's hovel in Professor Dumbledore's collection of memories. The sudden connection had given him the shivers.

Inside was a pervasive smell of decay, mildew and mold.

Mounted on wooden shields, rising up the stairwell, were the severed snout-nosed heads of those Black-elves who had expired – or been dispatched – whilst in service. A long, thick curtain hung against one wall cloaking the full-length portrait of one Walburga Black, Sirius Black's mother, silencing her as though she were a crazed budgie.

When the boys had arrived, Ron had given an immediate verdict:

"What a dump!"

And had then leapt two feet in the air at a dreadful screaming from behind the curtain: Mrs. Black had awoken.

"Filth!" she had shrieked, "_filth in the house!_ The impure, the execrable! Oh – pity for the blood of my fathers! My pure blood, _Toujours pur_ – the blood of the most noble! Keeping our line undefiled, our precious blood secured down the generations -"

Shocked and reeling backward, Ron had wrenched his wand out and defensively Disintegrated the curtain.

Then Kreacher had rounded a doorway, slappy feet pounding, fists balled, and had raced down the hallway, eyes raging. "Foul, blood-traitorous youth! _Get away from Mistress!"_

He had appeared so suddenly, had been so shockingly angry, that Harry had taken an impulsive step back.

Kreacher was Harry's elf, but totally despised Harry. He had wanted to be Draco Malfoy's servant – Malfoy, of the Black family bloodline - not Harry Potter's.

Hissing about 'the Potter brat and its speckled wretch' - supposedly to himself but loud enough to be overheard - Kreacher had then carefully hung a rich, expensive, green cloak over the screaming portrait. The cloak had swung from a peg on the hat-stand, presumably left there by an unwitting Order member. Kreacher had then flung Harry a filthy look of pure distaste, bowed low even though he clearly resented every molecule of Harry's being, and had managed to just about _not_ choke on the words, "_Master _is welcome to Grimmauld Place."

He had then given a great theatrical performance of moaning and wailing and clutching at his chest, whimpering about his 'poor ailing heart'. He had ended by sliding Harry a nasty, rheumy look, "Master surprises Kreacher by bursting into the house unannounced. Master wants Kreacher dead of shock! Creeping up on him! Snooping! Potter _wants_ Kreacher to have his head mounted on the wall!"

"I don't want you _dead_, Kreacher."

"Yeah – because if he did, he'd just slip you the business end of an axe!" snapped Ron.

Harry hadn't wanted to waste time being trapped in an argument with Kreacher.

"How did you get in here?" he had bit out.

Kreacher had flung him a glaring, blood-shot look which said very clearly that answering 'the Potter-brat' wasn't something he wished to do.

"Come on! Answer me!"

"Kreacher may come here," Kreacher snapped shortly, "as he is," Kreacher's mouth had twisted, "_bounden_ _to Potter! And this is now Potter's house!"_ He had spat the word 'Potter' as though it were the vilest insult. "Beautiful Grimmauld Place, the stately home of my ancestral family, blazon of my servitude, left to _Potter!"_ His tone had spiraled toward a screech, "Left to Potter in breach of all family honour! In breach of all natural entailment! The house should not have been Potter's it should have -"

Harry had heard the likes of this before and besides, he hadn't wanted Kreacher setting Mrs. Black off again. "Oh, shut up, Kreacher!"

Kreacher had glowered at Harry with utter repugnance, but had been forced to momentarily swallow a mouthful of insults. Then his sour glance had grown sly, his foot trailing against the patchy, worn carpet as he affected to look down at it, making out that he was simply talking to himself. "Not that Kreacher _likes_ being bounden to Potter," he feigned that no-one could hear him "– who is a worthless brat, who is lazy at school, who is a teachers-pet who gets housepoints for nothing, who has an unfair advantage having the best broom at Quidditch, who thinks his mere name is enough, who is inferior in every way to Master Draco, although Master Draco suffers the slights of - "

"Oh, save the insults till later!" Harry had immediately reflected that he shouldn't have said quite that as Kreacher now would indeed 'save the insults till later', recommencing his insults at some arbitrary point with the prim explanation that he 'had been instructed to'.

Kreacher was a very _devious_ elf. Kreacher was the house-elf who had interpreted Sirius' shout of 'get out' as 'get out of the house and go tell secrets to the Narcissa Malfoy'.

"What have you been doing here, Kreacher?"

Kreacher had scratched himself in a very embarrassing place – Harry winced and looked away, distracted. "Kreacher is doing a House-elf's duty: Kreacher is doing his Master's bidding. Kreacher has been … cleaning. Oh, Hogwarts is a filthy place! The stench of Mudbloods. The filth, the -"

Harry had paused, had he really wanted to say this next bit? But he _had_ to find out about R.A.B. and Kreacher had known him, he had been the family elf, he must have had close family contact with Regulus Black. Harry had just blurted it out, "Regulus Black, how did he die?"

It was as though he'd instantly frozen Kreacher in a block of ice. The house-elf had glared unblinkingly at him as though he really would like to run at him screaming. "Master Regulus," something in the house-elf's voice caught, "Master – he – he left Grimmauld Place one night, and he never came back."

"Is that true?"

"_Of course it's true!"_ Kreacher screeched. He had then composed himself as much as he could. "Master Regulus," a horrible, wailing, crooning, grieving note, "_Master Regulus …"_

Astounded, Harry had continued to question about Regulus Black and lockets. Harry would have felt uncomfortable at ruthlessly interrogating an elf so stricken – if it had been any other elf than Kreacher.

But under the questioning, Kreacher had simply become increasingly incoherent and had eventually thrown himself on the floor, wailing and sobbing inconsolably …

Harry had then explained to an aghast Ron about how Kreacher knew Grimmauld Place better than anyone alive, he was also the last living connection to Regulus Black and he may even have known about the locket itself … Also, that this had been the family home of Regulus Black, and that maybe if the locket were anywhere, then it would be here?

But now, three days later, there was still no locket and things were only ever more fractious.

The three had searched the house, Kreacher having been told very firmly and extremely explicitly not to tell anyone of the location of Grimmauld Place or to bring anyone back to it without Harry's permission or to tell anyone about the search for the locket.

The house-elf's face had screwed up with sheer bitterness: he evidently hated taking any orders from Harry Potter. He was still prone to bouts of hysteria about Regulus Black too, and had thrown a frenzied tantrum when Ron had started shifting things about in Regulus' old room.

He had hung a thick blanket over the portrait in lieu of the expensive cloak which had been there, muttering all the while about 'filthy friend of Mudbloods'.

At least Harry could not accuse Kreacher of shirking. The elf worked tirelessly. Fiddling about. Moving things. Muttering to himself. Inspecting stuff. Wrenching open drawers, cupboards and cabinets: searching, searching, searching. He was a house-elf on a mission. Muttering nastily to himself, Kreacher complained about Harry banishing him to Hogwarts and that if they'd wanted to find a locket why hadn't 'the Potter-brat' left him at Grimmauld Place all last year to look for it? Harry silenced him by reminding him: "Hogwarts was where you met your precious Draco, wasn't it? Well shut your mouth and stop complaining then!"

A lot of Harry's ill-temper was actually due to the fact that he had now been searching Grimmauld Place for days and seemed to have found everything _but _the locket: flagons of dragon's blood, evil-looking opals, charmed boxes, a nest of Doxies. Harry was worried. They had thrown out all manner of junk and dark objects when tidying Grimmauld Place two years ago. They hadn't slung the locket out, had they? But no, they couldn't have, the locket was obviously valuable, if they had come across it surely they would have kept it?

With a shocked roll of his heart, Harry had even unearthed the moving-photograph of the Order which Moody had once shown him, their pictures waving up at him even though many in the photograph were already dead: Professor Dumbledore; Emmeline Vance; Marlene McKinnon; Edgar Bones; Caradoc Dearborn; the Prewitt brothers who'd died like heroes, wisecracking and laughing; Dorcas Meadowes who was killed by Voldemort himself… Harry's mum and dad and … Sirius.

With a thumping heart, Harry had slammed the photograph back in a drawer.

He had gotten very tense. If Grimmauld Place didn't come through with a Horcrux or a clue, then even though Harry was sure R.A.B. was Regulus Black, he would still be at a dead-end!

Frustrated, Harry had stuffed his hand into his pockets and met again with the ring and the faux-locket. Angry, he yanked the ring out and looked at it: so crude, as crude as the box. Was it the Gryffindor Horcrux after all? Impulsively he shoved it on his finger – may as well keep it there as anywhere else and besides, doing that gave him at least some sense of control. Proof that at least he wasn't scared of wearing a ring!

Harry had Apparated to Hermione's house on a few occasions to sneakily check whether she was there: she wasn't. Ron – 'betrayed lover' though he was – had been secretly sniffing about the Order headquarters for her, but Hermione hadn't been there either.

Ron – the jilted party - was torn between nerves at his missing _friend _Hermione and self-pitying misery that his _girl_friend Hermione was 'back with Krum'. Possibly because believing her with Krum was less worrying than her being a captive of the Death Eaters, Ron had kept up a litany of complaint, insistent that the Krum-rumours must be true. _"… Everyone who knows me will be laughing at me … She'd only gone out seriously with two fellas: Mr. Quidditch Super-star and me … But then she dumps me … People are going to be comparing me with him and sniggering …"_

Harry had largely managed to tune him out, but the occasional … _dumped … Mr. Quidditch Super-star … dropped me … laughing-stock … _still broke through.

Unable to find the locket after the third day though, Harry got sick of it. "Oh for God's sake, Ron. She must have cared about you a bit! When she love potioned McLaggan that time so he'd take her to Slughorn's party, she only did it to make you jealous!"

The moment the words were out of his mouth, he could have kicked himself – or ordered Kreacher to kick him, which would no doubt have been a lot more painful. Because Ron hadn't known anything about that whole McLaggan thing, and there was no knowing how he'd take it.

Ron jolted to a stunned halt, his mouth shifting soundlessly, drop-jawed with shock. "She did _what?"_

Harry wasn't sure what to say. Ron looked really shocked. But … she'd been dosing Harry himself off and on for a year, sure, but McLaggan had been a one-shot deal. It was bad, but in comparison, surely -?

"She was making a _habit_ of it?" choked out Ron.

"Well – no. I mean, not with him. She only did it the once, Ron. I mean - it was just a stupid, girl-thing. She just did it to catch your eye. It was just -"

"But when did you find out about it?"

"I - the night before the expulsion – she said it when she was being questioned by Scrimgeour. I would have told you, Ron, but it was a mad night and -"

"But …" Ron's voice was now just a croak, "what else was she doing?"

Harry's expression shifted guiltily: Hermione had been up to a _lot_ of dosing. Not to mention worse, that whole _Confundus_ stuff, indicating she hadn't had any faith in Ron's abilities.

"Don't try to hide it, Harry, _what?"_

God, he couldn't tell Ron about the _Confundus!_

"I – er – well, it was just – just a few things, Ron."

"But she was dosing McLaggan just because it was _convenient?_ She wanted some little thing that 'didn't matter' – so she thought she'd just blithely potion someone and over-ride their will so she got her way? She didn't even think _twice_ about doing it? It was like he was just _cattle?"_

"Well – I mean …"

"Don't make excuses for her, Harry! She was potioning people left and right. She did it because she thought she counted for more than they did! That's the core of it! _She had no respect for anyone!"_

x x x 

Ron silently barged about the house, wrenching open drawers and cupboards with unnecessary force, seething with an unspoken resentment and anger. Then something else added to it. Ron came back from a trip out holding an edition of the _Daily Prophet_ - fuming even as he entered the house.

Ginny Weasley's involvement with the Chamber of Secrets had finally breached Ministry files and was all over the headlines.

The reporting was designed to whip up as much gossip as possible.

'_The school was plunged into hysteria with rabble-rousers urging pupils to 'throw all the Slytherins out'! Many of our most senior families were blackened, when in fact, the true culprit was the Gryffindor SuperGirl, Ginny Weasley! … She strangled several small animals and released a Basilisk who attacked pupils. She claimed that she was being possessed by You Know Who but there was never any proof of that. Was she doing it herself?'_

Harry started, even though Ron snorted in disgust.

"_We all thought it was the Heir of Slytherin,' said Daily Prophet reporter Colin Creevey, 'but now it turns out it was Ginny Weasley! Weasley was a poor student, her OWL results were appalling -" _How can theysay that?" yelped Ron. "They were banging on about how it was okay for a girl to have rubbish results not just a few weeks back!" Grimly, he went back to reading, "_Did she threaten the much brighter Granger into doing her dirty work for her? Weasley was well-known for having a violent temper -"_

Ron was so angry, there was practically squeak in his voice as he quoted on.

"- _one poor chap was attacked just for asking her a few questions! And there was another time she flew her broom into him because she didn't like him making jokes! Nobody did anything to stop her. It was as though she had an unhealthy influence. Pupils report: We all think she was more guilty about that love potion stuff than she let on. This Chamber thing has come as a surprise to no-one. She could easily have been up to no good down there!"_

"Oh, what a load of old bollocks!" yelled Ron.

But Harry wasn't so sure … he had been in the Chamber, he had heard what Tom Riddle had said … '_Of course, she didn't know what she was doing, at first'._

At first.

Which meant that at some point, she did know?

Her diary entries alone had shown that she knew _something_ was wrong …

Kreacher had cackled at the newspaper artical, screeching and scurrying to his horrible little nest of grubby blankets at the bottom of a kitchen cupboard. _"The Potter-brat and his filthy friends, not to be trusted on anything! Potioning each other! Setting Basilisks on people! Raiding the house, touching and stealing! Even though I am his servant, he does not deserve me!"_

"_Raiding the house …? _What's that mad old elf on about now?" Ron howled.

"He's probably talking about Mundungus," muttered Harry. "He was nicking Sirius' stuff and we did know it."

And then several 'other shoes' dropped at once.

Oh come on, it couldn't be! Could it?

_Mud had nicked the locket?_

"He couldn't have!" blurted Ron, having the same thought.

"Look, Ron. The locket isn't here. We've been looking for days. It must be somewhere _and Mud was nicking stuff!"_

"Of all the -" Ron squeezed his eyes shut and balled his fists in a temper. "I'll bet he flogged it on for about five Galleons! A golden locket, eh? He's probably flogged it on to someone in a pub! There'll be some bint running around somewhere with a Founder Horcrux round her neck like it was a bit of Saturday night bling!"

Harry closed his eyes … of all the lousy luck! The clue as to where the locket was could very well be in Azkaban! But they couldn't go to Azkaban, the risk was just too great. They needed professional help.

Harry had reckoned that what they needed was an Auror who could just walk into Azkaban and see Mundungus on 'Ministry business'. Tonks could do it, and Remus could contact Tonks.

They needed to call Remus at Hogwarts.

Harry had been readying to throw a fistful of Floo Powder on the empty grate and call for Remus, when he abruptly realised that he could not – the Ministry would surely be monitoring the Hogwarts Floos!

He needed another method …

Five minutes later, he had shot off upstairs, on the way snapping at Kreacher to stay away from the kitchen - but knowing him he was probably earwigging at the door anyway.

Within minutes, the portrait of Phineas Nigellus was speeding to Hogwarts to locate Remus and fill him in on what had happened to Harry, and to ask him to get Tonks to find out if Mud had any dealings with a locket, but without mention of Horcruxes.

Harry was just trying to explain to Ron, without mentioning Nigellus' involvement - Harry hadn't even told him yet that Nigellus now knew about the Horcrux business - when the empty grate burst into a roaring of green flames: someone was contacting them by Floo.

Both boys swiveled toward the hearth, wands raised, when Harry grinned in sheer delight: it was Remus! Harry's grin was abruptly wiped off by Remus' shout. "My God! I've been worried _sick_ about you!_ WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?"_

Remus was calling from the un-monitored Shrieking Shack fireplace – almost no-one knew that the shack even _had_ a fireplace - and several minutes were spent with an abashed Harry attempting to justify why he'd hidden away, explaining about the Aurors at The Burrow with Remus roaring on about '… _rash … piratical … just like Sirius and James … expected better of you, Ron _…_ need for secrecy, but you could have trusted the Order!_ … _What about Professor McGonagall? It's absurd to keep secrets from her!'_

Harry was uncomfortably wondering what to say when Remus' head jerked as he looked behind him. Harry and Ron instinctively raised their fists, wands gripped. Remus twisted completely, as though turning to face someone, "What …? How …? You can't …!"

There was a tussle in the fireplace as Remus was jostled aside.

Was it the Ministry? A Death Eater spy? Had Remus been caught?

"Oh for heavens' sake," cried the interloper, "let me in, Remus, and don't be so silly! I know you're all in here – you just _told_ me when you wanted me to go to Azkaban to see Mud, remember?"

It was Tonks, her bright-pink hair exploding into the fireplace. "I know you said it was a matter of security, but if it's about Harry then it's about Ron, and the Weasleys have been worried past themselves! They've a right to know! And Ron's sister's right here! There's no excuse for not letting her in on it!"

Without warning the head and shoulders of Ginny Weasley popped through the fireplace.

Harry was aghast. What the hell gave Tonks the right to decide to include Ginny Weasley in on anything? Especially at a time like this!

Ginny's lips were trembling: part of her was obviously as uncomfortable at her being there was they were but part of her was just angry. She sneered at Ron, but Harry noticed that she could not quite meet his own eye.

It was the first time they'd really seen each other since the whole potions blow up.

Ginny's hard smirk trembled and so did her voice, but even so she affected an expression of absurd pretend-surprise as she addressed Ron. "Hiding, were you? Running off and not bothering to tell Mum?_ Wait till I tell her you could have called her and didn't!"_


	20. Chapter 20

Title: (Chapter 20)   
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Chapter 20**

'Bickering' didn't begin to describe it. It was the equivalent of two prize-fighters going at it bare-knuckle. Even the blandly smiling and otherwise blank-faced Tonks was taken aback. In contrast, Remus looked surprisingly calm at the furious brother and sister spat, almost as though he saw that some festering wounds needed to be lanced.

"Oh shut up, you stupid little cow!"

"Don't you dare call me that!" Ginny's voice was cracking with distress, anger, embarrassment and also her own sense of the injustices done to her. "Do you know how hard it is for me at Hogwarts now? People sniggering about me behind my back! All of them calling me a slut! And now going on about that stupid Chamber thing because it's in the papers. That wasn't my fault! _I never knew anything about it!"_

"But it's never your fault, is it? You were waking up covered in chicken-blood and people about you were getting petrified and you _knew_ something was wrong – but it was all just about hiding your stupid crush! You didn't care what was happening to anyone else – it was all about _you!"_

Ginny went so scarlet, Harry thought her head might actually ignite.

"You were my brother and you practically ignored me!" she screamed, blazing with wrath. "You were supposed to look after me!"

"Go on, make it all about me – ignore _your_ involvement! Why was I supposed to look after you? You were at Hogwarts, you were supposed to make your own friends! But you fixed that though, didn't you? Suddenly getting all 'popular' with the blokes - in the easiest way a girl can!"

"I - _shut up!_ People like me for my personality!"

"What personality? You never even had one until my fifth-form! What did you do then, dose yourself up with Scintillating Solution?" Ron gave a coarse laugh, referring to the famously cheesy Kwikspell potion that guaranteed 'social success' the way Muggle ads for hair restorer promised to make men's' hair grow back.

Ginny choked, fiery-faced. "Go on! Show how pathetic you are! You're just jealous that I was popular!"

"Popular? You were _pathetic!_ Trading in boys like they were Chocolate Frog cards. Our family name was _mud _because of you!"

"Our family _-_? _I'm not_ _property!_"

"God, the way you chased Harry. Hanging around Hagrid's hut. That awful Valentines mess. That stupid Get Well card. Did anyone ever tell you that Harry put that card under a fruit bowl to stop it 'singing' – he hated the screeching so much!"

Ginny's face went slack for a moment – she had never known that - and then: "I'm warning you, Ron. Don't start me off!"

"Or _what?_ What are you going to do? Nothing! You're just a liar! At least Hermione owned up at the wedding - _you_ tried to blame it all on a little girl! Just like you let Harry take the rap for that _Heir of Slytherin_ stuff that time. Practically the whole school was against him and you knew something was up with you, but you just kept your trap shut, you – you _coward!"_

There was a dreadful pause, and then Ginny lunged forward at Ron so violently that she was almost out of the fireplace and into the room, her hand clawing out for his face.

Ron lurched back, alarmed.

Her voice was a wild screech. "_I am not a coward!_" She was in such a temper she was suddenly almost crying. "And what's so special about you? Hermione only went out with you to cement her place in the so-called 'Trio'_ -_"

Harry tensed, but Ron knew about that already and so it might not hurt that much, but –

" - _and had so little faith in you that she Confundused another boy so you could get onto the Quidditch team last year!" _

_NO!_ - Harry shot an appalled look at Ron.

"Don't feel so full of yourself now, do you! She Confundused McLaggan so he'd miss a save. She Confundused McLaggan because she was sure that even he was going to be better than you!"

Harry stared at Ron, horrified. Ron hadn't known anything about that Confundus business. At the time, Ron had actually jokingly said that McLaggan has looked Confunded, but he had never believed anyone had actually done it.

"I _know_ she did it and so does she!" Ginny screeched. "I saw her! She was hiding behind the stands. I saw her do it! I told her I had, on the train into Hogwarts this year, and she never even tried to deny it because she _couldn't!_ She just ran out of the carriage instead!"

Harry flicked another horror-struck gaze at Ron. The only thing Ron didn't know now, was that Harry had known all about it for the best part of a year and hadn't told him.

"Not so very clever now, are we, _Ronniekins!"_ Ginny screamed.

Harry's rage and horrified, panicking anxiety burst out. "_Shut up! Just shut up! Just shut your stupid face!"_

Ginny blinked, stuttering abruptly to a halt, mouth open and looking round-eyed at Harry.

Harry felt his anger combust. She was flinging this at Ron? And then they had to waste time on her alternate wailing and bragging about her personal life? People were getting killed. Hermione was missing. People were out there risking their lives – even Malfoy. But it was all just about Ginny Weasley?

"_Stop feeling sorry for yourself!"_

He belted his anger out.

"You being friends with me, you being 'In love' with me - you didn't even know me! You didn't want to know me! You were only interested in _Famous _Harry Potter – from the very first time you ever saw me on the station platform!"

Ginny's mouth shifted slackly, but Harry's tone got even hotter.

"Nothing you ever did was real! Going out with Michael Corner to make me jealous. Giving yourself a crash course in Quidditch. Trying to 'be like Cho Chang' because you though she was 'my type'? _What_ 'type'? I never had a type! I just thought I liked _her_. And then you were off on your most disgraceful ploy yet: snogging Dean – grabbing him in that corridor and jamming your tongue down his throat. He wasn't even going out with you until then, _he didn't know what hit him!"_

Ginny's expression shrank. Harry flinched at the sight and then fiercely hated that she even affected him that much.

"Want to know how I knew all that stuff? All that stuff about you copying Cho Chang, using Michael Corner, using Dean? Ron and I were on the train! We heard what you and Hermione said, we heard what she said about you! We were actually watching you from outside in the corridor. And later we heard about you pouncing on Dean in the corridor that time – he told Seamus and Seamus told Lavender Brown and she told everyone else. Everyone knows how far you went to try and get me!"

What was the worst thing he could say? The worst thing –

"_Everyone knows what a mad little trouser-chaser you are!"_

Ginny Weasley looked hollowed out and horrified: as though someone had scooped out her insides and flung them on the floor.

Half out of rage and half out of panic – he'd come so far now, he had to carry on - Harry swung the axe to finally chop off her head.

"The only way you ever got near me was to drug me. _YOU DRUGGED ME!"_

There was a long, stunned silence then Ginny's response was high-pitched, almost painfully keening: "I didn't! I _didn't!_ All I did was pick up the pieces! It had already happened! What was I supposed to do? Tell you? I just … "

Her voice dwindled wetly and she looked from face to face, looking for support, for any understanding, but finding only expressions of embarrassment, incomprehension or disgust. If she had met with just one shred of sympathy she would have burst into tears of fearful remorse. Afraid for herself and sorry for herself, yes, but sorry all the same and wanting to be forgiven – but she didn't meet with any sympathy and instead she went down the only avenue she thought was left to her, the one she habitually went down when neither lying nor crying had worked: she got angry.

"So -?" Her tone hitched and then spiraled, "So, I didn't tell you! So what? _You didn't deserve to be told!"_

_What?_ Harry almost drew back in surprise. _What was she on about now?_

"Why should I have told you?" she screeched, smoking with rage. "You treated everyone appallingly! You couldn't even be bothered keeping up the D.A. when you didn't need it any more. You never even knew the names of half the people in Gryffindor! You didn't even know who Romilda Vane was. _Everyone_ knows Romilda Vane. You never cared about _any_ of us!"

She took a gasping breath.

"That time in the library with the chocolate -" Harry had a flashing recollection about Hermione admitting to having dosed the egg, "I had to practically shout your name to get your attention. And even when I went out with you, even when - " her voice cracked, tear-filled, "I was never _good enough_ for you. _Never!_ I was just some _thing_ and you just snogged - " Her voice was fracturing now – "You just … Even when we kissed that time in the common-room, it was like I'd snog your tonsils out for six knuts - you were so busy with everyone's reaction but mine because I was just such a – such a _Sure Thing_." Her voice was hitching in her throat now, full of tears. _"_And even when you dumped me – dumped me -" her voice broke now, "it was all about how _you'd_ feel. How it would be for _you_ if it went badly. How hurt _you'd_ be." She broke with tears as she covered her face with her hands. "You just _used_ me!"

Her voice spiraled off into keening. "My life – all of it … no-one ever looked at _me_. I was just there …" She was crying so hard it was hard to hear what she was saying now. "I was just the girl. Even in the family – just the girl …" The words were dragged out in wet wails now. "Just treated me like a doll. I wasn't even real. Just took me out and played with me and then put me back in the toy box … I was just some _thing_ …" She was weeping openly now. "And I ran and I ran. I ran as hard as I could to get away from my life and catch up with yours. But no matter how hard I ran, I couldn't catch up – I only ever seemed to be standing still …"

All you could hear now was Ginny Weasley crying.

Harry was aghast, but not with pity, with utter incomprehension.

"For God's sake – how can any of this be my fault? _You were_ _drugging me!" _He sounded slightly panicked – God, would she just stop crying! "How could my feelings be 'wrong' when I never had any? I didn't know you were up to anything. My reactions weren't my own. I can't be blamed for them!"

"But you _did _know! You _must_ have!"

"Don't be absurd!"

"You _must_ have known. You _must_ have known something was wrong. You were surrounded by love potions. The school was full of them. Hermione even told you that girls were using them left and right. Even Ron got hit by an over-brewed one. You must have known. You did know. You just didn't _want _to know!"

Harry was appalled and astounded.

"For the love of -" He forced his words past his angry disbelief, "How many people are you going to try and blame before you finally accept that _it was your fault?"_

Ginny shook her head, face red with snotty tears, "You didn't _want _to face up to the war. I was just something you buried yourself away in to ignore it all. You _must_ have known that running after me was all wrong, but you still did it anyway."

"That's not true!"

"You cancelled the DA. People's relatives were getting killed, but you didn't care for two minutes on end …"

"I was being drugged! My mind wasn't my own!"

"It was all just about parties and Quidditch and housepoints …"

"_Just shut up and stop whining!"_

"… you didn't want to know about anything that was hard, you just did what was easy …"

"You're talking twaddle just to suit yourself! You didn't mind using others to get what _you_ wanted!"

"… dragging us all to the DoM … Sirius dead … you wanted to hide away, you didn't want to know …"

"_Take responsibility for what you did!"_

Ginny's eyes flicked wide, gaze glaring hot and wet, short, stubby fingers rigid and stiff with anger, like extended cat's claws. She roared at Harry.

"_I WILL WHEN YOU WILL!"_

Coals flew from the fireplace and, across the room, a glass shattered on a shelf.

x x x 

Remus had cut the Floo connection after very sternly telling Ginny not to open her mouth about Harry or Ron. Ginny had left, distraught. Tonks had been ejected in umbrage, "I _am_ an Auror, you know!"

Harry had blankly wondered what Tonks and Remus actually saw in each other. At the end of the last school year it had looked as though she'd been pursuing him like a woman on a mission – but why had she bothered?

Now he and Ron sat at the kitchen table. Neither of them spoke. Ron was simply blinking, mouth occasionally opening to speak, but with nothing coming out. Harry knew he was thinking about Ginny's accusations about Hermione.

He hadn't ever told Ron that he had known about Hermione's stunt with the _Confundus_, and now he didn't know what to say because it meant telling Ron that he'd been keeping it a secret from him all along.

_You cancelled the DA. People's relatives were getting killed, but you didn't care for two minutes on end …_

Harry flinched.

_It was all just about parties and Quidditch and housepoints … you didn't want to know about anything that was hard, you just did what was easy …_

It was completely unfair!

… _dragging us all to the DoM … Sirius … you wanted to hide away, you didn't want to know …_

Ginny Weasley was just being totally self-centered!

_Take responsibility for what you did! - I WILL WHEN YOU WILL!_

Harry felt his heart give a sick thump and a voice drawled from a painting on the wall.

"Well, if big-mouths were an asset in this war, the Weasleys would make up the winning side all by themselves. But go on, put a silly spat above the fate of the world. That's a pair of good little over-dramatic Gryffindors. Sulk enough and somebody might give you housepoints."

It was Nigellus.

Ron swiveled, "You!" he screeched. He turned to Harry, "Don't trust him!"

Nigellus ignored him. "But if you're after that locket Horcrux, Potter, and can't find it here – then why don't you try getting into the Black bank-vault?"

"A Horcrux -?" Ron was aghast. "You know about the -?"

As Ron continued to splutter in outrage, Harry, felt faintly detached from the whole thing. He still had Ginny Weasley's screeched accusations about responsibility echoing through his mind and – what was Nigellus' idea? The Black vault? Well, wondering about how to get into the 'Black' vault at Gringotts without being spotted seemed absurd in any case.

"Harry – _he's been spying on us!"_

But … the locket Horcrux wasn't at 12 Grimmauld Place, that much was clear. It _might _be at the vault.

"_He's been spying on us for the Death Eaters!"_

But Harry was very much still on the run. They had no Polyjuice and he didn't want to compromise Remus by having him pilfer some from Hogwarts. They didn't have Hermione to fix it up for them, never mind that it took ages to make and no-one knew where she was. But how were they going to get into that vault? If Harry went as himself, the Aurors would grab him … But there had to be a way. After all, if Quirrell had once managed it, it couldn't be impossible.

"_Quit lying, picture! You say you didn't find out about the Horcrux stuff from spying? So how do you know?" _

Blankly, Harry registered that Ron was still roaring.

Wasn't there something important about that, about Nigellus? Something he hadn't told Ron?

There was a pause and Nigellus gave a cold, elegant shrug, looking down his painted nose at the irate Ron Weasley, "How did I know? Because Dumbledore and Potter told me, of course."


	21. Chapter 21

Title: (Chapter 21)   
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Chapter 21**

Ron Weasley stood, seething, in the central hall at Gringotts.

He was wearing a very old-fashioned, rather ill-fitting, tweed suit whilst tryingto project the air that he was Very Important Indeed. The suit was from 12 Grimmauld Place, the 'air' was from Draco Malfoy. The 'seething' was from having been duped by Hermione, slagged-off by his sister, and held out on by Harry. So Ron now stood there in an itchy tweed suit that looked like something his granddad would have worn, and with his mouth so downturned, his head so far back and his eyes so hooded that he looked like a cod.

Harry was under Invisibility Cloak, feeling very sheepish about Ron. Under his Cloak he had his bag and a miniature painting of Nigellus. They had tested it: he could use it like a walkie-talkie.It's presence was reassuring, it was comforting – it was fall-back.

Uneasily it reminded him of a stray statement he associated with Ginny Weasley – something Tom Riddle had quoted to him from her diary entries – _it's like having a friend in my pocket …_

He slammed shut the memory.

He wasn't going to share anything with Ginny Weasley – not sympathy, certainly not empathy.

At least he thought that Ron's suit was slightly in keeping with the surroundings: Gringotts Bank had a vast, marble hall staffed by hundreds of goblin clerks crouching at rows of mahogany counters, weighing with brass scales and scratching away with quills. It kept reminding Harry of something out of Charles Dickens.

The Bank was the safest place in the world for anything you want to keep secure – and now Harry and Ron were about to try and break it. Harry doubted he could have got round security in the vaults at all if it wasn't for the fact that he was 'robbing' his own vault, he still couldn't imagine how Quirrell had managed to rob someone else's.

Posing as Justin Finch-Fletchley, Ron held 'the golden brick' and had used it as leverage to acquire a vault on the high-security level where the Black vault was. When Ron got escorted down there by cart, Harry would ride along invisibly, access the Black vault – he would hopefully be able to get in and get out as he was the owner – then check it for anything likely. Ron had bitterly announced that he would delay his return with any number of stupid questions until Harry was ready to come back with him. _'Because according to Hermione, stupid question are all I'm good for!'_

On the way over to the bank, Ron had shifted into bitterness about the brutal exchanges with Ginny, there had been a muttered monologue along the lines of _'stupid cow'_ … '_Having Malfoy chasing after her, loving every minute of it.'_

Harry felt that Ron wasn't really getting it: Ginny Weasley didn't 'love' Malfoy 'chasing after her'. When you got right down to it, she felt as much for Malfoy as Harry felt for her. The same way he'd crushed on his fantasy of Cho for years … Everyone 'in love' with the wrong person …

Ron had gone off on a running explosion directed at Tonks: '_Letting Ginny into the fireplace? What can you expect from someone who attends a funeral wearing bubble-gum pink hair? Ooh, everyone, look at me! Never mind the dead bloke – look at me!'_

A goblin called Griphook normally accompanied Harry down into the vaults – Harry had come to secretly suspect that he only did it because Harry was famous, a sort of Groupie-Goblin. This time, of course, 'Harry' wasn't going down into the vaults, Ron was. Well, 'Justin Finch-Fletchley' was. Ron signed the Truth Book as Justin, getting around 'the truth' by saying that he only intended to visit his allocated vault – true, he did, it was Harry who intended to do all the shenanigans. As Ron signed, Harry clocked that one of the day's signatories was one of the _Drop Deads _and that the fame-seeking-missile known as 'Griphook' was already occupied with escorting him.

Harry flicked the ex-Horcrux ring on his finger nervously; security had gone up about twenty notches since the acknowledged return of Voldemort, and Security Trolls were firmly in attendance in the hall. As 'Justin Finch-Fletchley' finished with the Truth Book, Harry craned his neck to see where the off-duty trolls sat. One was clearly 'reading' a newspaper. It looked like Crabbe or Goyle struggling with a school text-book. Harry recalled that Crabbe had given up on text-books entirely the last school year and had simply devolved to following the pictures in comics.

He peered over the troll's shoulder, it was 'reading' the childrens' funnies page, which had yet another artical on Pygmy Puffs: _'Pygmy Puffs do the cutest things! Have _you_ got a story to tell about _your_ Pygmy Puff?' _

He started as Ron gave a loud and, unless you knew that Harry was there, a rather odd-seeming series of coughs. A mousy-haired witch wearing a purple cloak, orange leggings and a hat shaped like a mushroom looked at Ron as though he were slightly peculiar.

Ron was trying to alert Harry to the fact that he was now off to the vaults with a goblin, and that Harry had better keep up!

As they subsequently racketed below the earth, the cart was rather crowded with the invisible Harry on board – not that the goblin knew it as he sat at the front and steered. At the back, Ron appeared to be sitting rather stiffly, somewhat needlessly crouched up. He was in fact making space for Harry who was sitting next to him.

The escorting goblin, called Einar, looked over his shoulder at the oddly-sitting, cramped Ron.

"Know how you feel. I'm a martyr to 'em myself." His voice lowered in sympathy, "Piles – there a terrible thing, aren't they?"

Harry was very glad that the still-annoyed Ron could not see him as he stifled a blurt of laughter.

The top-security vaults were miles under London and accessed by little railway tracks. They soon swept below the level of the London Underground and Harry could clearly hear the rumble of tube-trains.

Prompted by the sound, Harry wondered if those rumours about monsters guarding the vaults were true. He certainly thought he had heard great beasts shifting about down there before now. And the silver inner-doors of the snowy-white Gringotts building were engraved with a warning message which said something about_ 'finding more than treasure there'_ if you were to '_seek beneath our floors a treasure that was never yours'._

Well, even if there were monsters, at least he didn't have to worry about Death Eaters. The secret of R.A.B.'s identity was known only to he, Ron and now Nigellus – and none of them had told anyone. No-one else would work out the possibility of one of Voldemort's Horcruxes being in the Black vault. Malfoy had the initials R.A.B. from Hermione's list, but Harry doubted that Malfoy could make much sense of them. Harry had only worked it out via a flash of inspiration and access to the Sorting Hat.

Which actually made him wonder what Malfoy _was_ up to right now.

Harry abruptly jolted as the cart screeched to a dead-stop. He been so busy thinking, he hadn't kept track of where they were up to. They had reached Level Seven: the High Security level. Einar the goblin opened the side-door of the cart and got out, holding it open for Ron who got stiffly up from his seat, having to squeeze past Harry. Einar gave Ron a kindly pat on the arm and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper as he addressed a fellow-sufferer, "I always find that sitting on a packet of Freeze-Charmed Bertie Botts' works best."

Having struck up an unintentional comradeship with his goblin, Ron drew him off slightly. Fortunately, Ron's vault was in the very low 700s, not too far from the Black vault – number 711. Harry crept out of the cart and shuffled off down the rocky corridor toward Sirius's old vault. He could still hear Ron and Einar talking over his shoulder.

"Now, stick close by me, young Master Finch-Fletchley," – over his shoulder, Harry saw Ron start as it took him a second to recall that the goblin was actually addressing _him_, "There's a steep drop round these parts - we had to install a parapet as a protective measure after that accident with the Head of Health and Safety …"

Harry felt rather nervous, remembering what happened if you tried to access a vault that wasn't yours: you got sucked inside and trapped there for years. He recalled that when a Gringotts' goblin stroked a vault door gently with one finger, the door melted away. Harry was now standing in front of the Black vault. What would happen when he touched it? He was the owner, but would the door open easily? Would some warning go off? Would he get sucked inside, unable to get out? Even if it opened silently and let him in, would the goblin notice that the vault had been opened? Maybe he ought to wait until Einar went into 'Ron's' vault?

Harry was wondering what to do, wondering what would happen, when what happened was that the Black vault door shimmered open and a tall, good-looking, blue-eyed, blond-haired boy strolled out of it holding the Hufflepuff cup in one hand and a wand in the other.

"Uh?" Ron's face screwed up, astounded. "Wait a minute - aren't you one of the _Dead Malfoy's_?"

"_Draco Sodding Malfoy!_" Harry shouted. "I'd know that prating smirk of yours anywhere! You've been at the bloody Polyjuice again, haven't you?"

Harry was so angry that he tore his Cloak off – everyone knew he was there anyway, they'd heard his voice. Einar was astounded to see both Harry and 'Malfoy'. For a second everyone just stood there, looking at everyone else: a frozen tableaux of 'subterfuge'.

And then the shooting started.

Malfoy knocked out Einar with a stunning spell. Ron leapt behind the cart whilst shooting at Malfoy. Malfoy ducked and Protego'd before charming his handsome green traveling cloak into a solid shield and hiding behind it. Harry found cover behind a parapet guarding a chasm edge. Spells crashed and flashed between them. Reducto's were hurled in a three-way flurry but none had any effect. Malfoy's cloak had some very effective protective charms woven into it whilst the goblins weren't exactly the sort to take any chances and both the parapet and the cart withstood shock after shock.

"_You!"_ Harry roared, recalling the Hufflepuff cup. "You won't keep _anything_ a secret! You complete git!"

"You can talk, Potter-Prat! You'vebeen keeping the biggest secret of all! _You lying sod!"_

"Oh -" _What the hell was Malfoy on about now?_ "You've got the cup. You're in business for Voldemort!

I told you about the Horcruxes and the first thing you do is go running to Voldemort so you can tell him! _You evil, evil GIT!"_

"What?" Ron almost stood up from behind the cart. "You _told_ him? First Nigellus and now _this?"_

Ron had to duck back under cover as Malfoy shot at him.

"I had to tell him!" yelped Harry, shooting suppressing fire at Malfoy to cover for Ron. "He already knew too much! I had to tell him to try and get him to shut up!"

The 'brick' glinted in Ron's hand; Malfoy took a second to look at it, eyes narrowing. "Nice box, Weasel. Who did you nick it off - some defenceless widow?"

Ron roared and then remembered his family honour. "You've been after my sister, you _scrote!"_ Ron yelled in rage, angry at Hermione, the potioning, the Confundusing, at Harry keeping secrets about Nigellus and now keeping secrets about Malfoy himself. "Well you're wasting your time, Malfoy. She _laughed_ at you fancying her! She told us she knew you fancied her and she _laughed!"_

Malfoy flung a stunning spell so hard that it blasted a chip off Ron's cart.

"Did your lush of a mum know your sister was in on dosing Potter? Put her up to it, did she?" He threw a particularly vicious hex, "Make her go after Scarhead, so the family could get it's mitts on some money at last?"

Ron roared and then dodged out wide to fling a spell, "Stop kidding yourself, _Mouthful_." His temper twisted his entire face. "Our Ginny went after Harry because she wanted him, not _you!_"

Malfoy took a huge, angry breath, "_Everyone knows_ _your sister only wanted Potter because you were pushing her into it! _Your family's always treated Potter like property! Those twins of yours yelling _'we got Potter, we got Potter'_ when he got sorted into Gryffindor. You probably _threw _your sister at him!"

"_That is complete crap!" _but in his temper Ron almost broke cover from behind the cart.

"Did you tell her to get stuck in the Chamber of Secrets?" Malfoy shouted. "Set her up as the little princess to be saved by the hero? Get her into the dirty habit of playing with boy's snakes?"

The flash of three-way spellfire ricocheted about the passageway.

"_Don't listen to him, Ron! He's just trying to wind you up so that you'll break cover and then he can shoot you!"_

Harry saw that Malfoy was now struggling with something in the pocket of his cloak and instinctively knew what it was: that manky Hand of Glory and the Darkness Powder. If he got to use those things then he'd have an overwhelming superiority!

Harry knew he had to level the field, if only to distract Malfoy from getting the Hand. Harry called across the rocky corridor, "Hey, Ron! D'you know that Malfoy was at the wedding-reception, Polyjuiced-up as someone else? Talk about dim! Bet he only went to get a gawp at your Ginny!"

"Yeah, _sure_ I did!" Malfoy tried to make it sound ironic, but his voice shook. He turned on Ron. "Yep, I was at the Reception, Weasley. Your mum half-cut, your dad hen-pecked and Granger," he laughed, "Granger, the love potion fiend!"

Ron practically stood up at being reminded of Hermione, and had to duck as Malfoy shot at him.

"Where is Hermione, you ferret-faced git?" he yelled. "If the Death Eaters have got her -"

"Of course they haven't got her. I'd be the first to be invited to the gang-bang if they did!" He sounded disgusted. "If you've lost Granger, blame Potter. He's the one who got her expelled!"

Ron flung a hex so hard, it actually bounced off the wall next to Malfoy.

"Whooo, sharpen up that aim, Spatterface: one day you might be able to hit a barn door! Yep, all the women associated with you Weasels are a rum lot. Not that they aren't up for it!"

Ron crashed a spell at him – this time his furious face appearing momentarily around the side of the cart as he took aim.

"And I snogged the girlfriend of one of those twins of yours. Of course, I say I 'snogged' her but what I really mean was that I sha -"

Ron lurched out slightly wider to hurl another crashing spell, which missed.

"And then of course, there's Granger." Malfoy gave a short laugh. "Has Potter told you that I got my hands in her knickers?"

"He's _lying!" _Harry screamed, trying to keep Ron suppressed.

"You and Granger?" Malfoy sneered at Ron, determined to provoke. "You couldn't handle her! Every time you had a row, you'd be terrified she was going to dose you! She's got no respect for you – everyone can see that. I saw her at the wedding, she just treats you like an annoying child You couldn'tstand the pace with her, Weasel-gob. _You'd end up a nervous wreck!"_

Harry cast a horrified look toward the now silent cart. There was a frozen stillness in the vaults. Then Ron exploded out, launched himself full-length through the air, took aim and –

- was blasted into unconsciousness by a perfectly-timed _Stupefy_ from the shielded Malfoy.

Harry hurtled out, roaring and was shot out by an _Impedimentia. _As hewas blasted to the floor he just had the self-possession to Accio the 'brick' Ron had been holding at the same time as Malfoy yelled 'Accio Potter's wand!'. Even as he got the 'brick', Harry's wand was wrenched from his grip – he hadn't been ready for the attack – so now even as he held the box firmly, Malfoy held his wand.

Harry scowled, bitterly biting back his anger at Malfoy. He took in Malfoy's changed appearance with disgust. "The _Dead Malfoys?"_

"Why not?" Malfoy fought for breath after the spell-fight and gave a nervy laugh. "Might hold onto the disguise for a while, find a group of teenaged girls and get laid for free."

"_Laid for free?"_ Harry went red. "Think like that about Ginny Weasley, do you?"

Malfoy froze and then scowled in a rage. "I don't fancy her, okay? _It's not true!"_

Harry knew that 'accusations' concerning Ginny Weasley were Malfoy's weak-spot. If they weren't true, then Malfoy hated the association with a 'blood-traitor'. If they were true, then Malfoy feared the connection with a 'blood-traitor' - and probably hated the ever-present knowledge of his total failure to get anywhere with her when he, Harry, could have had her 'for free'.

Harry laughed.

"I'm telling you to shut it, Potter!" Malfoy's voice was a trembling snarl now and he raised his wand to Harry. "I've had plenty of girls and I _don't_ 'love' Ginny Weasley!"

"No, you don't. How could you – you don't even know her. Anything you felt would come under the heading 'pathetic crush'."

"Shut up, you lying, secret-keeping -" Malfoy flung the best insult he could come up with, "you _Sectumsempra-Junky!_"

It was Harry's turn to smart. "Stop flinging that at me!" 

"That's our Potter. The only person who could gut someone and still manage to come off as the victim! _You lying little git!"_

Harry's expression shifted – why did Malfoy keep going on about _lying?_ "What the hell are you yelling on about, you messed-up Daddy's-Boy!"

"You know perfectly well what! - _I know!"_

"Well whatever it is, it's news to me, so spit it out, Malfoy!"

Malfoy's 'Drop Dead' face twisted, as though he was trying to stop from blurting something. He looked about as though he was fearful that they were being overheard and then roared over his shoulder through the Black vault door, "Get out here, you shifty little sod!" The vault door opened tentatively and Malfoy slid a dismissive look toward it as, from the shadows, a goblin sidled into view.

Harry was stunned – _Griphook?_

Griphook, the goblin who had escorted the 'Dead Malfoy' down to the vaults and who had once deviously offered to let Harry into the Black vault, appeared from behind the door, looking shifty and evasive. No wonder he hadn't escorted Ron, he'd been too busy knocking-over his own bank with Draco Malfoy!

"Griphook," Malfoy barked over his shoulder, "get up here and introduce yourself properly."

The goblin lurked mutinously.

"Well, come on!" ordered Malfoy.

Griphook shifted waywardly, but did not come that much further out.

"How did you realise you could use him?" asked Harry, astounded.

"Quirrell," snapped Malfoy. "You remember him? One of the first in a line of would-be, Potter-slaughterers? I knew the Gringotts bust had to be an inside job, so I asked around a bit and Wormtail told me: Quirrell had gotten a goblin called Griphook to get him into the vaults. Wormtail's full of useful information like that. All you've got to do is talk to him."

Malfoy looked positively smug at his own cleverness.

"A woman was _murdered_ to create that Horcrux," Harry indicated the cup, "and you're congratulating yourself that you were smart enough to get to it first?"

Malfoy blinked. He hadn't thought of it that way.

"Prepare to die."

"What?" For once, Harry and Malfoy were in unison.

"Prepare to die, Potter." That was Griphook. Astoundingly, the goblin had now whipped out an ancient musket from beneath his frock-coat and had pointed it directly at Harry's heart; he had evidently purloined the weapon when he had stepped back into the Black vault. Griphook steadied his aim on Harry, preparing to shoot. "You're going to die, Potter," he stubbed out, "I'm going to kill you."

There was a silence, then –

"Why?"

"What?"

"_Why _are you going to kill Potter?" Malfoy persisted. "A Killing Spell would probably bring a ton of security down here. And besides, murder rips your soul and one way or another there may not be much of yours left."

Harry's startled gaze shot between Malfoy and the armed goblin.

Griphook looked uncertain, as though he was newly-nervous of killing but might still do so just to keep on the safe side. He weighed Harry up then came to some decision: a click could be heard as he pulled back the trigger. "He's seen me here. I'll have to kill 'im."

Harry's eyes flicked wide. He almost barked with crazy laughter: to be bumped off not by Voldemort or ranks of Death Eaters but by a grafting goblin on the make?

Harry saw Malfoy's wand hand twitch, but Griphook could fire that musket a lot faster than Malfoy could shoot off a spell.

Instead, Malfoy used his weapon of choice: words.

"Consider: you're quite safe, even without doing anything to Potter," Malfoy indicated the unconscious Ron, "or his ugly, red-headed, hanger-on. What's Potter going to do? - say he knows you were robbing the vault because he saw you break into it before he could? He can't tell anyone because he shouldn't be here himself. Not to mention that he's on the run from the Aurors. He can't tell, I won't tell, and you really shouldn't tell." He leant forward, delivering his next words in a stage whisper. "It'll be our dirty little secret: all three of us together." He straightened and his voice shifted back into its usual delivery. "Besides, now he knows you're open to offers he might decide to barter for your services." He wagged a chiding finger, "Never kill a future customer!"

Harry was astounded – he was defenseless, at gun-point, and the only thing keeping him alive was Draco Malfoy's gift of the gab?

Thankfully, in his own way, Malfoy was a very gifted gabber. He reached out slowly and lowered the goblin's arm. "There's no need to kill the speccy little four-eyes."

"But if I get found out, Gringotts'll 'ave me guts for garters."

"Precisely," continued Malfoy. "All the more reason not to draw attention."

"All the more reason to wipe out all the evidence, you mean." Griphook's tone hardened and he yanked his arm away from Malfoy, his musket aim raising again. "It's getting too hot for me. I'll have to go on the run."

"_What?"_ enquired both boys.

Griphook rolled his eyes, "Things have gotten too hot for me. I will need to destroy all the evidence." He stepped away from Malfoy and altered his aim to include Malfoy himself, "_All_ the evidence, mind you. I'll just have to kill you both, rob yon' Potter's bank vault and do a runner."

Harry looked at Malfoy and Malfoy looked at Harry.

They acted in unison.

Harry kicked Griphook in the head as Malfoy likewise kicked him in the face, rendering the goblin utterly unconscious as he went down. Then Harry and Malfoy's temporary alliance ended as Malfoy quickly stooped and grabbed the goblin's musket before Harry could get it.

"You've got two wands, one weapon, and I've got nothing!" yelped Harry.

"So?" Malfoy sniggered, "Not my problem if you can't keep wood for more than a few minutes."

Malfoy took aim with his wand and hit each goblin with a _Confundus _so hard that it made their unconscious bodies jolt. When they came-to, they would be very confused indeed: they wouldn't remember a thing. Malfoy leered at Harry, "What they can't remember, won't hurt me." He threw the musket over the parapet.

"And how are you going to get out of here now that Griphook's totally Confunded?" Harry yelped.

"I'll switch to 'Plan B' – I always have a Plan B."

The cup now dangled from Malfoy's belt. Harry couldn't stop staring at it. It was so _close_ … But now Malfoy had a plan to escape? What if he could get away before Harry could make a try for the cup? He yattered on, trying to keep Malfoy there, trying to buy himself time to _do _something. "How did you even know to look in the bank vault in the first place?"

Malfoy's expression shifted, annoyed, and then he spoke quickly, as though having decided upon an answer. "I saw the initials on Granger's list: Regulus Arcturus Black. He was one of my uncles. I'm even named after him a bit – my middle name's the same as his. His initials are on something of his that mother gave me." Harry noticed that his voice became brittle at his mention of his mother. His voice shook slightly now. "A knife that'll undo locks, and unties knots. I used to help bust us out of The Burrow. Didn't you wonder where I got it?"

The knife …? Harry hadn't wondered, but -

"Nice answer, but it still doesn't explain why exactly you were in the bank vault."

Malfoy's expression slipped and Harry was going to push the point, but then both boys swiveled as sounds could be heard: the shooting match had attracted attention after all, and a great rumbling was now approaching.

Harry and Malfoy shot each other a look. Neither of them could afford to be caught here. Harry also had the problem of the fallen Ron.

Alarmingly, the sound of heavy, monstrous breaths could now be heard.

As much exasperated as fearful, Malfoy shot an alarmed glance toward the sounds of the oncoming vault guardian and then … fled, running down the rank of vaults, away from the on-coming monster, abandoning the wandless Harry, the unconscious Ron, the two helpless goblins and all.

Harry flung the two goblins next to Ron and tossed his Invisibility Cloak over all of them. He hurriedly looked for Ron's wand – maybe it would work for him? But Malfoy was getting away even now and … _And he still had that bloody Horcrux!_

Unable to find the wand but still grasping the shining box, Harry sprinted after him.

As he raced to catch Malfoy, the dreadful breathing got ever louder. In a few more seconds that thing – whatever it was - would have rounded the corridor and he and Malfoy would be seen! Going flat-out he got within reach of Malfoy who was having to slow down to wrench his Hand out of his cloak in an attempt to hide under cover of Darkness Powder. Harry was hotly determined: no matter what, Malfoy wasn't getting away with that Horcrux! Malfoy had the Darkness Powder out now, but Harry managed to get a hand out to him and -

His foot caught on Malfoy's heel and he tripped, grabbing Malfoy whilst lurching for balance. Malfoy toppled and dropped the box of Powder. Harry's flailing arm grazed a security-vault door and he felt a sucking sensation and a great feeling of being squeezed as he and Malfoy both went straight through the door and into the vault beyond.

Trapped - likely so for ten years.

Furious, a horrified Malfoy wrenched himself away from Harry, glaring wildly about at the darkened vault.

"Potter, you _moron!_ I've got to get away!" His voice rose. "I've got to get this cup to the Dark Lord! I've _got_ to! You utter, _utter, TOSSER!"_

_NOTE: I saw the 'only person who could gut someone and still manage to come off as the victim' quote in an LJ post by Slinkhard._


	22. Chapter 22

Title: (Chapter 22)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 

**Chapter 22**

"Pillock."

"Cretin."

"Plonker."

"Imbecile."

"Prat."

"… _Bank robber_."

That last was so hypocritical that it wasn't even worth Harry responding with another insult. "Give me that cup!" he muttered hotly.

"Keep your voice down, moron, that thing's still out there." Malfoy held all the cards – well, all the wands anyway – but he was the one sounding almost hysterically pressured, even at a whisper.

They each stood poised and keenly listening, sealed inside the stone-walled vault. In the silence, there was a continual snuffling noise from outside: like a cat sniffing away at a mouse hole with a mouse inside it.

The creature was still waiting for them.

Harry didn't know whether to yell for help or keep quiet, and to top it all, Ron was helpless and unconscious outside. He tried to fight down his alarm with the realisation that – if all else failed – at least he could call for help via his miniature of Nigellus. Okay, Nigellus could only help them by telling others where they were and thus blowing their cover, so he'd only do it if he had to, but it was still an option.

He swallowed and tried to sound confident.

"Wassermatter, Malfoy? Scared? Want me to hold your hand for you?"

Malfoy went pink with the pressure of _not_ exploding. "I'm not scared, Potter – it's just that unlike you I've _got_ to get out of here. I have someone depending upon me!"

"Yeah – _Voldemort!"_

Malfoy was so livid that for once he was actually robbed of the power of insult.

They were lit only by the light of Lumos from Malfoy's wand – a wand which he trained relentlessly on Harry. Malfoy was really Malfoy now – the intense magic barrier of the vault doorway security had stripped the Polyjuice of its power and he had been wiped clean and turned back into his tall, thin, pale, light-eyed and almost inhumanly-blond self. In the low, gleaming light, Malfoy's grey eyes looked oddly silver, taking on an almost reflective sheen.

The thing sniffed at the door.

Harry became aware that there was a faint sweet smell in the vault.

"What's that smell?"

"Well don't look at me! I can't smell anything!"

"There is, it's -"

"Oh sorry, yeah! I forgot to say, it's my 5000 Galleons a bottle bespoke scent, individually hand-blended by the elves of Maison Potionoire that makes me smell of lemons and pepper! You know - Maison Potionoire? The place where they blind the baby elves at only two weeks of age to enhance their sense of smell? Now that's the kind of thought and care you don't mind paying for!"

"Wha -? _Is any of that true?"_

Malfoy shook his head, aghast and amazed at Harry's gullibility. "If you can smell anything on me, Potter, it's soap, water and the smell of the good clean air: the only scent a gentleman needs!"

Harry hadn't said it, but actually he was rather grateful for the reversal of the Polyjuice appearance: even if it did mean having the smug git Malfoy back in all his peacock-like in-glory.

In one way though it had been disturbing to watch Malfoy 'switch back'. The way the features had shifted. The good-looking _Dead Malfoy_ morphing into the real Malfoy. The features straitening, becoming sharper, more precisely drawn, more symmetrical. And that was what unsettled Harry: that the handsome, 'gorgeous' _Dead Malfoy_, who had girls all over the country screaming after him, was still less 'perfect' than the actual Draco Malfoy. Not 'perfect' as in 'stunningly handsome', but perfectly symmetrical, perfectly even, perfectly balanced. It was un-natural.

Malfoy's face was so symmetrically perfect, so 'right', that it was all wrong.

The tall, slender Malfoy was like an etiolated plant: long, thin and pale from having been forced to grow in the darkness; having to grow fast, to sacrifice build for height in a desperate effort to reach any light it could.

"Stop gawping at me, Potter. It's pathetic. You've got no chance." – Harry almost choked – "Snape was a practiced Leglimens and he couldn't read me, so you haven't got a hope!"

"I – _oh, shut up, Malfoy!" _In a bad temper, Harry lashed about for something to say."We wouldn't be in this mess if you hadn't run! We could've faced it out!"

"Run …? Faced …? Oh, you mean fought off a great, big monster that probably sees us as snack-sized? Well, that would have required me giving you a wand, Potter – to be subsequently being shot by you as you try to get your mitts on this Horcrux!"

Harry's mouth opened to hiss a retort when another huge snorting sniff came from just outside the bank vault door, this time accompanied by a sort of crooning that set his hair standing. Whatever was out there was very keen to get at whatever was in here.

Maybe it was time to stop arguing?

"Okay, Malfoy," he spoke low, turning with a new focus, "everything in here is valuable -"

"Yeah, _that's_ why they call it a Bank Vault. You should've dragged Weasley in with you. He could have fulfilled his life's ambition and died surrounded by riches."

Harry snapped, exasperated. "You're not being funny, you know!"

Malfoy shot a tense glance toward the snuffling noise which at that became even louder. He blinked and then turned back to Harry, his silvery eyes now gleaming reflectively as he shifted. "Oh, how remiss of me, I hadn't realised it was my role to amuse you. You should have brought your Invisibility Cloak, we could've whiled away the years playing Hide-and-Seek!"

"Oh -" Harry swallowed a vehement swear-word. "Look, Ron's outside, he might come-round and he's still got his wand! He might be able to help!"

"That's supposed to cheer me up? Depending on the _Weasel?_ He's probably been trampled to death already!" Harry flinched. "Look, Potter, I'm -" Malfoy caught himself and his voice spiraled to genuine outrage, "_Is that my watch you're wearing?"_

Harry nearly gave way to a string of violent oaths but then recalled something. "Wait! - have you got that lock-opening knife with you? We can use it to open the vault door!"

"Don't be stupid. If we use it against a Gringotts' vault, the blade'll explode in our faces!"

"Well – okay, how about the last of that Felix Felicis? I know you've got some. I'll bet you've got it on you. We can use your luck to get out!"

"Are you kidding? I've only got a sniff left! I have to save it for an emergency!"

"For an _emergency _-? _And this isn't?"_

Malfoy folded his arms stubbornly.

Aggravated, at the corner of his eye Harry caught something glittering, something familiar-looking. He darted toward it with Malfoy still attempting to cover him with his wand. "Look! See! This is what I meant about valuable stuff – _useful_ stuff! This place is full of valuable things, magic things, and we might be able to use some of them to escape!" Victoriously he held up the two objects which had caught his attention. "A set of two-way communicating mirrors!"

"Of which you are holding both parts. What are you going to do, send an urgent message to yourself, telling yourself you're in mortal danger?"

Harry suppressed his ire and tried to take the initiative. "So you told Voldemort about the Horcruxes! Bloody typical!"

"Oh you really are a fool, Potter. The Logic-train just ran straight past Potter Halt, didn't it?"

"Not going to accuse me of 'thinking too much'?"

"How!? Didn't you imagine that after the tower the first thing the Dark Lord did was to _check_ his Horcruxes? I know that the Dark Lord doesn't qualify as 'normal', Potter, but you'd have to admit that anyone with even half a brain would have taken the elementary, sensible step of _checking_. I had the job of looking for 'a locket' and 'a cup' as far back as us getting out of The Burrow. The Dark Lord already knew they were missing and knew that Dumbledore was at the back of it! _He's known all along!"_

Harry's jaw dropped so sharply that he looked as though it had been unhinged. All that secrecy he'd engaged in, all that keeping the Order at bay to stop Voldemort from finding out about the Horcrux hunt, it had all been for _nothing?_ And okay, so there might have been a spy in the Order – but he could have trusted some of them! All that secrecy had been a debilitating waste of time! And back at The Burrow, Hermione had practically _said_ as much!

Thinking about her prompted him.

"Dropped Hermione in it, did you?" he hissed, angry at Malfoy because he was angry at himself. "Blabbing about her list?"

"_I did not!"_ Malfoy actually sounded outraged for a brief second but then recovered himself. "He doesn't know about the list. When he asked how I knew about the Horcruxes, I told him something else that was also true – that you'd told me about them. Not that I won't hesitate to drop little Droopy-Drawers in it if I have to. If it's her or me, be assured that it'll definitely be her. But it wasn't necessary to do it, so I didn't." His expression shifted, his mouth twisting, "I couldn't split on her – she's a girl and I don't hit girls -"

"No, you just call them Mudbloods."

Malfoy's mouth grew harsh for a second before his smirk effortfully reasserted itself, "- so I dobbed Weasel-face in it, instead." He gave a nasty grin. "Lord Voldemort asked me if you had any special friends he could aim for, so I told him: Ron Weasley."

Harry felt the breath block in his throat and then burst out. "You utter git!" 

"Oh pull yourself together, Potter. I couldn't say 'no-one' and be believed. Even a socially-maladjusted little runt like you has to have _some_ friends. As it was, you only have two: it was a choice of Weasel-breath or Granger, so I picked him."

"And I'll bet you bloody loved doing it too, didn't you. Just like your dad. He deliberately _left _you at Hogwarts for Christmas in our second-year when the place was besieged by a monster! And in the Department of Mysteries he was going to let Bellatrix Black _Crucio _Neville – just like she'd done to his mum and dad. _And_ he was going to let her kill Ginny Weasley just for fun!"

There was a sudden silence.

Harry had pushed Malfoy's buttons.

When Malfoy finally spoke, it was hard to tell whether his words were out of guilt, spite or anger. "You and Dumbledore, what a pair eh? All words and no action!"

"You're a git who'd sacrifice anyone to save himself!" hissed Harry.

"Whereas you're just an idiot who doesn't know what's good for him!"

"And you follow a half-mad, half-human murderer!"

"And you took orders from a cracked old man who was so 'in control of the situation' that he couldn't even stop teenaged girls from using love potions in his own school!"

That one hurt. Harry hit back with something even harder.

"You let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts!"

"So what? So did Dumbledore! He let a Death Eater into Hogwarts -"

"Barty Crouch didn't count! Everyone thought he was Moody!

"I mean _Slughorn!_" Malfoy caught himself and stumbled, but it was too late, he'd shot it out anyway. He carried on, "He is an ex-Death Eater _and Dumbledore let him in!"_

Harry gawped - that was untrue, that had to be untrue, that was - "_You're making this up!"_

"Oh work it out, Galileo! Slughorn had been on the run from the Death Eaters for a year before he got to Hogwarts - because a year earlier his Dark Mark went off when the Dark Lord returned in that graveyard! _He ran because he knew the Dark Lord was back!"_

Harry had a horrible memory … _and one who is too cowardly to return …_ "You're just saying whatever comes into your head!"

"And what about the Felix Felicis? It takes six months to brew. Slughorn had his own batch newly ready on the first day of Autumn term, so count back six months. What was happening? Your interview about the Dark Lord's return came out in _The Quibbler_, that's what! Slughorn started brewing Felix Felicis then, because he knew then that he needed all the luck he could get!"

"You're talking rubbish!"

"Then how do you explain the fact that I managed to blackmail him last school-year by repeatedly hinting that I knew? If he had nothing to hide, the strategy wouldn't have worked!"

"You were _black -?"_ Harry nearly choked on the words

"Where do you think I got all the Polyjuice from? Even you must have realised I'd used gallons of it over the year! Do you imagine I could've kept up creating that quantity without getting caught, or nicked that much outright in that first Potions lesson? At school last year, I didn't just have Crabbe and Goyle, you know. I had other people, better people: Slughorn! The only reason I didn't get more Felix off him was because the Ministry had it under tabs."

"I don't believe – _that's rubbish!"_

"Don't you think I haven't asked the Death Eaters about Slughorn, just to make sure? I discretely asked Wormtail and he _told_ me Slughorn was an ex-Death Eater. And worse, not just any old one, but a member of a torture squad. Specialised in choke and release: suffocating people and then letting them go -"

Harry fought down a dreadful memory of Professor Dumbledore saying to Slughorn that Voldemort might want him for many reasons, including torturing people … like he'd been dropping a hint or something. And the way Slughorn had been so quick and cool with the Anapneo that time Harry had been choking on the train into Hogwarts – as though he was practiced at it.

"- and repeating it over and over until they told or died! Dumbledore _must_ have suspected something about him! He _must_ have! And he still let him into the school and then he did nothing to get rid of him!"

Harry rounded on Malfoy. "Well neither did you!"

"I _did _– I -" Malfoy cut himself off, voice stumbling for a second before barreling on. "Dumbledore was a lousy teacher. He only ever spoke to you. I bet he couldn't put names to six other kids in a row." His voice had something ever more high and ragged about it. Something splintered and breaking now. "On that tower-top he said he'd known what my task was. So why didn't he do something about it earlier?"

"What happened to you wasn't the Professor's fault!"

"It _was!_ He let it all get so bad. He left me to struggle by myself!"

"It was nothing to do with him!"

"It was! He knew all about it. He said so on the tower-top. Why didn't he do something to help me? He took a hitching breath, "He must've known the impossible position I was in! He _must_ have! So why didn't he _say _something? _Why didn't he do something to help me?" _He was no more trustworthy then than he is now!"

Harry started. "What do you mean, 'now'? _He's dead!"_

"Stop lying! I told you: _I know!_"

Harry stood, completely dumbfounded.

"_Dumbledore is alive!"_ yelled Malfoy.

Harry's jaw dropped.

"You lied and lied to me! You knew I'd come in for protection if he was alive, you knew it - I as good as told you! But you let me carry on thinking he was dead!" Malfoy's voice was breaking now. "I couldn't see those Thestrals at The Burrow! I should have done because I'd 'seen death' – I'd seen Dumbledore 'die'. But I couldn't see Thestrals – which means I hadn't 'seen death', which means that Dumbledore is alive!"

Harry was utterly stunned: in the rush of events he'd completely forgotten about Malfoy not being able to see those Thestrals.

_The Professor was alive …?_

"For God's sake Malfoy, he's dead! I saw him die!"

"Well I 'saw him die' too, and I couldn't see Thestrals!"

"He is _dead!_ I held his body! His painting is on the wall in the Head's office – he's _breathing_ in it. That can't happen unless you're dead! For God's sake, Malfoy, why would anyone be keeping it a secret? He's the only wizard Voldemort ever feared! Why would anyone hide the fact that he'd beaten Voldemort again, when the only advantage would be to boost to Voldemort's confidence? They had a Necrotopsy! I know so because Scrimgeour's seen the records! I held his body! I held his body after the fall from the tower – all battered and broken and lifeless and -" Harry choked at the terrible memory of it - "and he's –_ THE PROFESSOR IS DEAD!"_

xxx

There was smoke, flames and choking.

"You started a _fire_, Malfoy! A fire in a _locked vault! _What did you think was supposed to happen next," gasped Harry, eyes watering, "apart from us burning to death, you – you _wanker!"_

After steadying himself following Harry's yell that Dumbledore was dead, Malfoy had shakily sneered and set fire to the flammables in the vault, pointing his wand and snarling the magic word: _Incendio!_

"The Goblins will come to shut the fire down," choked Malfoy. "We're in a security vault. They'll come down in case of fire, and when they do, I can knock them out and we can get past them. They have no wands, remember? I have to get out of this vault, Potter! _I can't wait!"_

"You have a plan? Well that's good because _they have monsters!"_

"Well we can't stay here and I don't see you coming up with any solutions! But that's you all over, isn't it? You just _wait_ for stuff to happen. You never initiate anything!" He gave a bitter laugh, "Not even your first kiss. When you kissed Cho Chang the rumour was that _she'd_ kissed _you!_ And don't try to escape from here by somehow Apparating - _Prophecy Boy who's going to save us all_ – because you'll be sliced to pieces by the defensive wards around here!" Malfoy looked livid. "'Slicing to pieces' being something you'd know all about, you twat!"

Even through the crackling of the fire, the smoke and the choking, Harry managed to shoot Malfoy a filthy look.

Malfoy's gaze flicked to the box and Harry clutched it to him. "You're not getting this. It's cost me too much. I had to get it off Snape."

Malfoy nearly choked – and this time not on the smoke. _"Snape?"_

"He had it hidden in my Mum's grave. Ron and me found him a few days ago when he was digging it up, and we got it off him."

And that, at last, shut Malfoy up.

He stared at Harry for a long time and then stared down to the box again. "That was _after_ you 'escaped' me at grandfather's, wasn't it?" It was a rhetorical question: Malfoy obviously wasn't interested in Harry's answer. Half-choking in the smoke, he squinted at the box. He was calculating. "You should keep hold of that box, Potter. Boxes are getting quite fashionable with Death Eaters. You really should take my word on that."

Now there was the unmistakable noise of rapid, approaching footfalls. Shouts in _Gobbledegook_ could be heard and there was the sound of a large beast moving away from the door.

Malfoy snatched up one of the two-way mirrors and raced to stand just to the side of the vault door – he would go unseen when it opened. Harry – unarmed – flung himself behind a table, gaze flicking between the vault door and Malfoy.

"Malfoy, they'll be coming in! I haven't got a wand!"

"So what? If it wasn't for you, I'd have the Darkness Powder and we could've gotten out that way!"

The vault door was now shimmering; the goblins were about to enter to put out the fire. When they did, it would be a point-blank shoot out: wands against whatever the goblins had.

"Malfoy! Give me my wand! You can't shoot them all by yourself!"

The vault door trembled and was clearly about to dissolve. Malfoy's expression was torn: faced with the instant choice between arming Harry to increase his own chances of escape, and the commensurate fear that Harry would then use the wand to shoot him.

His eyes gleamed in the low angled light, so reflective now that they shone.

The vault door gave way just as Harry reached to catch his wand as Malfoy threw it to him.

Four astonished goblins stared at Harry as he stared back: all frozen.

And then a fusillade of spells.

Malfoy shot at the goblins by using the surface of the two-way mirror to deflect his wand-shots around the corner of the bank vault door. Harry jerked into action and blasted away with _Stupefies,_ point-blank.

There were thumps as four stunned goblins hit the floor. The boys escaped through the now-open bank vault door.

And immediately started shooting at each other in a running hex-battle as they crashed back down the corridor toward the fallen Ron and the exit.

"You're not getting away with that cup, Malfoy!"

"Sod off, Potter!"

"Give it back! The whole world's at stake! This isn't just about you!"

"It's _always_ 'just about me', Potter!"

A lucky, mis-timed shot saw Malfoy sent sprawling. Harry started, he hadn't expected to hit Malfoy, he -

"_Accio_ cup!" yelled Harry.

Malfoy snatched it back just as it was about to leave his fingers. Harry raised his wand again and got it at the second go, with Malfoy lurching forward, clutching after it. Malfoy looked wild. "Give it back! I've got to have it!" And then the explanation for all his nerves and tension – "_Potter,_ _he's got my mum!"_

Harry gazed down at him, blinking.

"He's got my mum, Potter! _He'll Crucio her to death!"_

_What? _Harry didn't shift, he felt frozen.

"_You've got to give it back!"_

But Harry couldn't give it back … he just _couldn't _…

"Potter, the Dark Lor – Volde. He's capable of dreadful things! I've asked Aunt Bella. She tortured the Longbottoms because they knew something about a Horcrux! Nott's mother stole it from Aunt Bella and gave it to Alice Longbottom! The Death Eaters murdered Nott's mother for that! It's all getting out of hand, Potter! He was talking about snatching Longbottom or that little Ravenclaw because they were with you at the Department of Mysteries!"

Harry felt something within him go ice cold.

"He's up to something with the children at Hogwarts," Malfoy screamed, "– he _wanted_ them to get to school!" Malfoy's voice was cracking now. "The Weaslette is kidnap bait if she sticks her stupid nose outside Hogwarts. He'll grab Granger if he can! _Potter,_ _this whole thing is completely mad! Voldemort is simply insane! It's all wrong but I can't do anything about it! I have to get my family out of this mess!" _

Harry's mind was reeling.

In the pause, Malfoy had snatched up dropped box of Darkness Powder. Then he lunged up to try and grab the cup back but missed, and instead, Harry felt a tugging at his hand. Something slipped and Malfoy fell back, looking down in at what he now held: the ring. It had come off Harry's finger. Harry stared down at it, numb, but did nothing to get it back. It was no longer a Horcrux anyway. And Malfoy needed _something _to take back to Voldemort …

Malfoy glared up at him again, face drawn, mouth in a silent snarl, muscles tensing for another effort, but before Malfoy could get at the cup a huge shadow emerged from behind Harry's shoulder to engulf them both. Harry saw Malfoy's jaw drop as the now wide-eyed blond boy stared at something huge looming over Harry's shoulder, his eyes now taking on an actually mirrored sheen.

Harry swiveled to see what it was.

Hanging over him, it's massive head craning about on its long neck, was one of the creatures which guarded the vaults: an immense Welsh Green dragon.

It peered down at Malfoy.

Harry could actually feel its hot, meaty breath blowing against him, flattening his t-shirt to him with each heavy exhalation and sucking it back slightly with each inhalation.

It's massive head was mere feet from him.

All eyes, scales and … teeth.

At this range it could incinerate both he and Malfoy with a single belch of fire.

Bloody. Hell.

The dragon ignored Harry and instead stared down unblinkingly at Malfoy, it's huge golden eyes – their vertical-slit pupils widening – totally spellbound. Completely uninterested in Harry, totally uninterested in the cup, it was fascinated only by Malfoy. It took in an enormously deep breath and –

A stunned Malfoy didn't wait to be incinerated but instead stumbled to his feet and dived forward between the dragon's legs.

The dragon lumbered around, shifting after him.

Harry stood there, stunned by its immense size, his mouth hanging open, wand hanging limply from his hand, numb. And then he lost sight of everything as Malfoy, panicking, clumsily threw up a cloud of Darkness Powder, hurtling away, clutching the Hand of Glory, trying to outrace the dragon.

In the pitch-black and clutching both the cup and the box, Harry could hear the dragon halt and then, even in the blanketing dark, he could hear it take another set of great sniffs and stumblingly set off after Malfoy again.

Hairs rose on Harry's forearms as he realised: _the dragon could smell Malfoy out!_

Harry heard the dragon give a howl as it lumbered off, persisting in its efforts to drag Draco Malfoy back from the suffocating darkness.


	23. Chapter 23

Title: (Chapter 23)   
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Chapter 23**

"You TOLD him? You actually _TOLD_ him? You told _Malfoy?"_

Harry was trying to ignore Ron's invective but it wasn't as though Ron didn't have a point – even if he had repeated it endlessly.

"Not to mention what you told Phineas Nigellus! _Since when have you been keeping secrets from me?"_

Harry winced, because he was still keeping one big secret: that he had known all along about Hermione and the _Confundus_.

Harry and Ron had got out of Gringotts when the Darkness Powder had worn off; Harry and a groggy Ron had managed to get a very confused Einar to take them back up to the bank in the cart. Harry had been under cover of Cloak again and Einar had been too perplexed to clearly recall whatever had gone amiss in the vaults. Ron, secretly accompanied by the invisible Harry, had stormed out of Gringotts, a picture of affronted dignity and Dragon-soot, calling out that he was going to 'write a very harshly worded letter to the management!'.

Now, each under cover of Invisibility Cloak, they hurried up the Hogsmeade high street, toward the Shrieking Shack where they had since arranged to meet Remus. Harry was just about buoyed up by the thought that at least the night could not get much worse.

It was dark and away in the distance the lights of the evening train to London showed at the station, and the faint shouts of porters were heard as they slammed shut the train doors. Only two people had boarded the train, each heavily swaddled in traveling cloaks: one had a trunk, the other carried a bag.

The late-train was never very popular; it wasn't half so comfortable as the Knight Bus which had beds. The late-train was only used by people who were grimly determined to leave Hogsmeade no matter what.

They weren't the only people they saw. In the distance as they hurried up the street they had seen Madam Rosmerta – looking very wan and depressed, very unlike her usual self – ushering in someone who knocked on the closed pub door. From the distance it had been hard to tell precisely who it was, but Harry would have sworn it was Tonks if he hadn't known for a fact she was at Azkaban.

After the 'bank job', Harry and Ron had rushed back to Grimmauld Place and found Nigellus via his miniature portrait. Nigellus had still been at the Ministry, tactfully investigating any matters about the tiara, the box etc.. Harry had gotten Nigellus to contact Remus at Hogwarts to say that Harry and Ron were coming, also to warn him about Slughorn, that he was a spy for Voldemort. Remus had also been warned about Luna, Neville and Ginny Weasley, so it could be ensured that they were still safe, and that Voldemort had some 'plan' for the Hogwarts children.

Harry had not mentioned Malfoy's part in how he had got the information, just enforcing the urgency of _what_ he had been told.

He also asked Nigellus to check again for any news of Hermione. Malfoy had been certain, in his own awful way that she wasn't a Death Eater captive – '_of course they haven't got her, I'd be the first to be invited to the gang-bang if they did'_ - so where was she?

They now had the cup and the box, at least one of which – the cup - was a known _bone fide_ Horcrux. Destroying it would be tough: doing for the ring had nearly killed Professor Dumbledore. According to Hermione, Gryffindor was 'fire', Ravenclaw 'air', Slytherin 'water' and Hufflepuff 'earth'. Did that mean that the cup would somehow bury its attacker? That the locket would drown him? Destroying each Founder Horcrux might take a life – and even then it might not work.

Malfoy had the ring now – not that it would do any harm, surely? It was defunct!

At Grimmauld Place they had found Kreacher breathless with exertion, claiming that he had been moving furniture about, not that Harry could see that anything had been moved. But even so, the panting Kreacher had offered to take 'Sir's' bag - _"Shove off, Kreacher."_

Moving hurriedly up the street, Harry still had his half of the bank-vault the two-way mirror set in his jacket pocket: its flat. At the back of his mind, a shape moving at the very corner of his vision, was the knowledge that he'd last seen the other mirror in Malfoy's possession. Did Malfoy still have it? Was he contactable on it? Was it even safe to try – for both him and for Malfoy?

Hastening up the Hogsmeade street, Ron ground on about _'trusting slimy Slytherin gits'_ but Harry was annoyed to find that he was worrying about Malfoy. He had no idea how Malfoy had escaped the vaults, or even _if_ he had. Was Malfoy still stuck down there, helplessly traipsing the mazes of Gringotts even if he had got away from that dragon? No food, no water …thirsting. Malfoy had Confundused both goblins, so did Griphook even recall Malfoy enough to get him out, even if he had decided against killing him? Could Malfoy have Apparated out? Highly unlikely if what Malfoy had said about Gringotts security was true: that it would slice a wizard to pieces if he tried. But Malfoy might have been desperate enough to try, seeing as his mother's life was depending upon him.

Harry's thoughts twisted away from that.

Of course, Malfoy could always have _lied_ about the Apparating thing, but then Gringotts were quite content to let a wizard starve to death by being locked inside a vault for ten years. But … Malfoy _had _referred to 'Plan-B'.

Harry was getting the feeling that Malfoy was very much the sort with a 'Plan B', a 'Plan C', or even a 'Plan D' if that was what it took.

He trudged up the street.

He hadn't told Ron about the mirror, he hadn't told Ron about a lot of things: about Malfoy not giving him over to the Death Eaters when he could have; about Malfoy saving him from Griphook; not even that Malfoy now had the defunct ring-Horcrux. He thought he'd save the ear-ache till later; he had enough to be going on with right now.

"_Him!_ Of all people!" Ron was still very sore about Malfoy. "Saying the Weasley women were 'easy'! Insulting my family like that! _Calling my mum a lush!"_

Harry hunched his shoulders and struggled on. Did Nott know something? Nott could see Thestrals: he'd seen them at Hagrid's C.O.M.C. class, he'd put his hand up when Hagrid had asked who could see them …Not that you could tell at the time, what with Malfoy leaping in and spouting off rubbish whenever the topic of Nott and the Thestrals was touched upon.

"Saying that sister of mine 'played with dirty snakes'! But at least she wouldn't have _him_ though!"

Harry hunched into his jacket – Malfoy crushing hopelessly on Ginny Weasley for years and getting nowhere, with her knowing all along and sort of looking down on him for it … What had she called him? _That skinny, class creep_ … And she hadn't thought twice about him when he'd been slashed to ribbons in the bathroom! That had come as a real shock to Malfoy. Had Malfoy really thought that Ginny Weasley wasn't the type to fight dirty? He didn't really know her if he felt that: maybe he just thought he did?

"And then he was off snogging George's girlfriend at that wedding! Or should that have been off _knobbing_ her?"

Malfoy had been devastated in that bank vault when he'd found out that the Professor was dead. Almost tearful. Had he been banking on the thought that the Professor was somehow alive and could get them all out of it?

"_And then he just trots off and blabs to Lord Thingie!"_

And now Malfoy knew that the Professor was gone, and that there was no help coming, and that he was in it by himself. Malfoy was in so far over his head now, that he was like one of the 'prisoners' in the Goblet Tournament, chained to the bottom of the lake … but in his case with no-one bothering to rescue him and the oxygen running out …

"And, yeah, so, Malfoy's in a mess -"

Ron's words were angry, stinging, insect bites.

" – but at least he's in a mess of his own making!"

"_AREN'T WE ALL?"_ Harry's words leapt out at a roar. "Malfoy is as trapped in all this as we are! Me, you, Hermione, Malfoy – even your stupid sister! We're all in a mess now! It doesn't matter how we all got here, it's just a question of what we each do now!"

There was a stiff pause, and then each boy slowly walked up the street: next to each other but each alone in silence.

x x x 

After a frustrating wait in the Shrieking Shack until Remus could get past Auror security, they had sneaked into Hogwarts and gotten into Remus' office using Invisibility Cloaks. Remus was able to report that it had been checked hours ago that Neville, Luna and Ginny were still at Hogwarts; he also reported that Nigellus had returned to the Ministry to continue his investigations into the box. Slughorn had seemingly gone missing.

"Tonks okay after that outburst before?" asked Harry.

Remus shrugged, "She's not back from Azkaban yet -" Harry supposed that the mystery girl at Madam Rosmerta's hadn't been Tonks after all, "- but she reported that Mud doesn't know anything about any locket."

Harry could barely hide his disappointment. Mundungus didn't know -? Then where was the locket! _Could Tonks be wrong?_

It quickly emerged that the teachers and Aurors guarding the school had lately been preoccupied with shepherding the students about. Professor McGonagall had ordered that the students sleep in the Great Hall where they could be guarded overnight until the truth was known about Slughorn. Under cover of Cloak, Harry had whipped the Marauders Map out and checked for Slughorn. He couldn't see him, but then again there were over a thousand dots all moving about!

"Slughorn's probably scarpered," murmured Remus. "Minerva was saying that he'd tried to resign on the first day of term. He must have known the game was up."

Harry recollected Slughorn in the Head's office: sweaty, anxious, tugging at his collar, clutching at a note and wanting to resign … That note … Had that been when Malfoy had tried to 'get rid' of Slughorn? But why would Malfoy get rid of Slughorn from Hogwarts? Slughorn would have been an ideal inside man for the Death Eaters which … might have been the reason why Malfoy had tried to get rid of him?

In that bank-vault, Malfoy had been clinging to the thought that Professor Dumbledore wasn't dead. Clinging to the hope that there was still someone out there who could stop the Death Eaters for him. But Malfoy was going to have to stand up and be counted on this one, and not hide behind his dad or anyone else, because the Professor _was_ dead!

_Wasn't he?_

Harry caught himself – _oh of course he was dead!_ But then … _why_ hadn't Malfoy been able to see those Thestrals …?

Remus had given one of his rare displays of anger on the way back to his office. A group of loitering students, enjoying roaming about and trying to put off going to the Great Hall for as long as possible, were clustered around a hand-written poster pinned to a notice-board. Filch stumped up – never keen on students having fun - and the students scattered as both Filch and Remus approached.

"Oh for -" Remus' voice ripped out as he tore the notice down. "Filch! Go and rip down any more of these ruddy things!"

Harry and Ron each craned to read the notice before Remus scrunched it up. It read: _Can't afford a broom? Call Ginny Weasley for a free ride! Or maybe she'll give you a trip with her Scintillation Solution!_

"_What?"_ Ron had yelped, his voice ringing in the air.

Remus had hurried Ron and Harry back to his office and was now explaining that there had been a Potions-sweep that afternoon, designed to clear the school's reputation. Ginny had been caught out: shockingly she'd been found with rather a lot of Scintillation Solution in her possession, it had emerged that it was left-over from the year before when at the start of the year she'd ordered large supplies.

"_WHAT?"_ howled Ron, ripping off his Cloak.

"I'm sorry, Ron," Remus sounded rueful, "but apparently she'd been using Scintillation Solution since her fourth-year. For some reason she wanted to be 'popular'."

Harry slipped his Cloak off and slid a concerned look at Ron – he had shown a very proprietorial streak towards Ginny's reputation and it's reflection upon the Weasley family.

Over the stunned seconds, Ron's face went through a rather odd spectrum: from white, to pink, to red, to puce. Harry had thought he was going to explode with wrath but then - "I _knew_ it!" Ron punched the air, voice almost squeaky with ecstatic glee. "I _wondered_ where she got her 'sparkling new personality' from! Since her _fourth_-year? She's practically an addict! Just you watch - _Mum'll go_ _spare!"_

Ron had the whooping joy of a man who'd just seen the Chudley Cannons take the Snitch.

Remus gave the gleeful Ron a somewhat forbidding look. "There's been a bit of a poster campaign against her for a short while now – kids keep sticking them up. Sometimes when I get there some unknown good soul has done the school the favour of already tearing them down, but most of the kids are loving it."

Some unknown good soul …

Harry blinked.

It couldn't be? Could it?

"Remus …" Harry's voice was very uncertain, he spoke in an undertone so that the still chortling Ron did not hear him. "Professor Dumbledore, he's not still – still _alive _is he…?" Remus was clearly astonished. "It's just that, well – you see – Thestrals, and -"

"Harry, he's _dead_. You saw him yourself. The Ministry even performed a Necrotopsy."

_Necrotopsy _… He'd said that to Malfoy himself. Harry remembered Scrimgeour talking about it … _the fall would have killed him and he was poisoned anyway …_

The Professor was dead.

Harry's thoughts jerked away from it.

Remus finished looking at him oddly and continued more loudly, cutting across Ron. "Anyway, it wasn't just some of the students who had been caught out by the potions sweep, but one of the Professors too."

"Slughorn?" interjected Ron, eagerly.

"No … actually, it was Professor Trelawney."

"_WHAT?"_ Both Harry and Ron were astonished now, Ron almost choking from pulling a 180 from 'chortle' to 'jaw-drop'. "What was she doing," he blurted, "souping-up her sherry?"

According to Remus, she'd been doing more than souping-up her sherry: she'd been souping-up her classes. She'd been putting a Befuddlement Draught in her kettle and suffusing her classroom with its heavy, sickly-sweet scent: sedating her classes in an effort to make her teaching life easier. Evidently she'd always been more than a little afraid of her classes getting out of hand.

"Was _everyone_ in this school on the dose?" Ron was appalled.

But for the first time in a while, Harry brightened.

"Hey! Befuddlement Draught – that's the same as Confusing Potion, right? I remember that stuff! I was reading about it in fifth-form: '_most efficacious in the inflaming of the braine' … 'where the wizard is desirous of producing hot-headedness and recklessness …' _It inflames the brain! That means it makes you bad-tempered, right? I was stroppy all that year – but that explains it! Every time I went into her class, I got another dose! All that bad-temper, it wasn't my fault!"

_That _would show Luna Lovegood!

Remus interrupted with a cough, eyeing Harry ruefully. "Professor McGonagall was forced to suspend her of course. She could hardly do anything else. With one thing an another, Minerva's had rather a day of it. First having to speak to Sybill, and then interview Ginny and the other students who were caught with potions. And now, of course, Minerva's got this whole Slughorn as ex-Death Eater thing to deal with."

A grinning Harry – still happy at telling himself he was off the hook for all his fifth-year bad temper and recklessness – then noticed that at the mentions of Professor McGonagall, Remus had begun to look slightly uncomfortable. Harry became somewhat suspicious. Then he became very suspicious. "You haven't told her about me coming to Hogwarts, have you?"

Remus looked _very_ uncomfortable.

"Oh great! You _have!"_

"She's the Head of Hogwarts and the Head of the Order, Harry!" Remus sounded as though he felt the need to justify himself. He spoke increasingly hurriedly. "This is her school, she has care of the pupils, she _has_ to be told. Of course she knows you're here, I _told _her so. She knows about the Aurors at The Burrow – everything."

"But -" how to explain his misgivings about McGonagall without mentioning the Horcruxes, which Remus did not yet know about? "Look - I know Professor Dumbledore hadn't told Professor McGonagall about some important stuff …" How could he say about the way Professor McGonagall had been so keen to find out all she could about things like the prophecy when Scrimgeour had dosed Hermione? About how she'd survived those Stunning spells when she should have died? He just blurted it: "Look – he might not have told her because she could be a spy for Voldemort. She could be up to anything. She could …"

Harry's voice petered to halt as he became aware that Remus was staring over his shoulder, face sliding into a glazed, aghast, slack-jawed expression. On his other side, Harry could _feel_ Ron staring at the doorway.

Oh no, it couldn't be, could it?

"And what, Mr. Potter, could I be up to?"

Patently, it _could _…

Harry had a horribly prickly feeling at the back of his neck and gave a sort of slow motion wince. He couldn't quite find the strength of will to turn around. Professor McGonagall had arrived and been standing in the doorway, and she'd heard _everything_ …

It looked like the night could get worse, after all.

"Am I to take it, Mr. Potter," Professor McGonagall queried in her best chalk-down-a-blackboard tone, "that after refusing a headquarters to the Order, after selfishly worrying us by 'going on the run'," she pronounced the phrase with a shiver of distaste, "you are attempting to insinuate that I," she pronounced it 'Aye', "might be a spy," pronounced 'spay', "for You Know Who?"

Harry turned, trying not to cringe. At his side, Ron was already in the crash-position.

"Well – I -" Harry mutinously steadied and re-asserted himself, "- anyone could be a spy!"

"Mr. Potter, I am _The…Head…Of…The…Order_." She said that last with a determined slowness, pronouncing each word as though it were spelled with a capital letter. "So if I were a spy, don't you think we would know already, because I would have betrayed the Order at one fell swoop? If I were a spy for Voldemort, _you would know it already because you would already be dead!"_

Well, it was _easy_ to be clever when someone _told_ you the answer!

"And while I am about it, Mr. Potter," she continued, voice like a drill, "_what_ did Professor Dumbledore _not_ tell me that you considered to be so important?"

And here came the nub of it.

Well, he supposed there was an advantage to having Professor McGonagall turn up like that: with she and Remus both there he'd only have to say it all the once. He wondered if it made him slightly callous, but the truth was that it was getting a bit boring having to keep on repeating the whole Horcrux thing.

Harry simply laid it all out. After that, there was a very lengthy pause: the silence between a pin being pulled and a hand-grenade going off.

"_HORCRUXES?"_ screeched Professor McGonagall.

In contrast, Remus actually had to sit down. "Regulus …? But Sirius despised Regulus, and all that time … all that time …"

Harry was uncomfortable at Remus' reaction but he'd started now, so he had to finish. "Voldemort made six Horcruxes. He can't be killed until they're destroyed. Professor Dumbledore did for one of them: the Ring. Unknowingly, I did for another – the diary. There are four others we've got to track down and annihilate: the locket, the cup – we've got that here -" Harry got it out and put it on the desk – "and two others. There's also the box." Harry dumped the gold brick down on the desk as well. "Anyway, may as well get a plan together. We need to destroy the Horcrux that we do have – the cup. We had a lead on the locket. We think Mundungus might have nicked it -"

" – and that's why you wanted Tonks to go to Azkaban to question him?" Remus said faintly.

Harry did feel slightly ashamed at that. When Remus put it like that, it did seem very manipulative. He swallowed and carried on, "And we need to investigate this." He pointed at the gold and silver box. Harry's next words were quiet. "We clawed it off Snape – after he'd dug it out of my mum's grave."

McGonagall gasped and Remus slumped, and Harry told them all about that too. After hearing the tale, Remus took the box and examined it gingerly, turning it over in his long, thin fingers, as though it was an unexploded bomb that might go off in his hand.

"Malfoy told me that we didn't want Voldemort to get it – but he didn't say why."

At the mention of 'Malfoy', Harry's entire audience looked astounded.

"_Draco_ Malfoy?" clarified Professor McGonagall.

Harry's jaw shifted, unsure of what to say next. The Malfoy bit had just sort of … come out. But then … he had to tell someonesometime If he died without telling, then the secrets of what Malfoy had done for Harry, and about what had really happened on the tower-top, died with him. Harry blurted it out: "Malfoy let me go once, instead of handing me over to the Death Eaters."

"_What?" _cawed Professor McGonagall.

"Since _when?"_ roared Ron.

Remus sat in considering silence.

"It was when we got away from the Aurors at The Burrow," Harry explained, talking quickly. "He let me go. He even gave me a wand. He's heard about the prophecy just like everyone else: he thinks I might have a chance at taking out Voldemort!"

Ron and McGonagall stared at him in disbelief, as though he was speaking in tongues.

"Look!" Harry cast about for evidence, "Remus! You said he was 'shrewd'! Who do you think told me about Slughorn being a Death Eater?"

All three - Ron, Remus and McGonagall - jerked to attention at that.

"Oh come on! It must have been obvious it wasn't me who worked out that Slughorn thing! I'd never have come up with all that stuff about the timing of him going on the run and making the Felicis. I just don't think like that! That was all Malfoy's thinking! He'd been using the information to blackmail Slughorn for Polyjuice supplies all last year –"

"_Blackmail …?"_ gasped Professor McGonagall, horrified.

"Look – how can you stick up for him like this?" blurted Ron. "Malfoy's hunting the Horcruxes for Voldemort _and_ he was going to kill Dumbledore!"

There was a pause … "He wasn't." A silence and Harry continued: "He wasn't going to kill the Professor."

Before anyone could interrupt, he lurched on, shooting out everything. About the tower-top. About Malfoy lowering his wand when the Professor had made him an offer of security for he and his family. About the Death Eaters lunging in with Snape and wrecking everything. About how Malfoy simply would not - could not - kill Dumbledore, even when pressed to. About how, this very afternoon, Malfoy had saved him in the Gringotts vaults when Griphook was going to kill him. About how Malfoy was so screwed up that he'd deny all of it - terrified of Voldemort finding out. "Come on, he even had Felicis all last year -"

Professor McGonagall gasped.

" – but when he used it to try and kill the Professor it kept backfiring and his plans fell apart with no-one getting killed because the Felicis was giving him what he secretly wanted, and he didn't want anyone to be dead!"

"Are you _certain_, Harry?" asked Remus.

"I was _there_ on that tower-top! I _saw_ it! On that tower-top even the Professor said that he knew Malfoy wasn't really trying to kill him!"

"But why didn't you tell the Order before?" queried McGonagall.

"Because I don't trust them!" He rounded on her. _"Isn't that part obvious, yet?"_

McGonagall bridled and Remus flinched, but did not try to admonish Harry.

"Look," Harry continued, "if I told anyone about Malfoy – about what he'd done and about what he'd _not_ done – then if it got back to the Death Eaters, they'd have killed him! And it's not like there haven't been spies in the Order before!"

Remus was still looking waxy and pale but he was able to gather his thoughts and feel his way through it. "So, Draco told Voldemort that you were hunting down his Horcruxes, and now Draco's in a race against you – aiming to save his mother? But he's protected you from the Death Eaters and then protected you again, earlier today, from being killed? And then he turned Slughorn in, even though – when you think about it - Voldemort would surely have wanted him left here?"

"I know, it's …" Harry struggled with the difficulty of it. "Look - I think Malfoy's trying to walk a tight-rope. For him it's all about protecting his family – protecting people he loves."

"I don't know why he'd bother," snorted Ron, "his dad's a pig!"

Harry kept going, stumbling for the words; he was never very good at talking about emotions.

"Malfoy doesn't care about _people_, he just cares about _persons_ – particular people, people who are special to him. Voldemort is threatening his family. Malfoy will get the Horcruxes if he can, but he won't hand me over. He said that not handing me over was 'contingency' – that if Voldemort was defeated, then having helped me was insurance for the Malfoy family."

Ron snorted, "Well at least that part's believable!"

"But there was more to it than that!" Harry hurtled on, keen not to be silenced. "Malfoy saw Snape murder the Professor. He said that he knew that the Death Eaters have done 'dreadful things'. He told me about Voldemort's plans to take hostages: Luna, Neville, Ginny. He told me all about Bellatrix Black torturing the Longbottoms because she thought they knew something about a Horcrux. That the Death Eaters killed Nott's mum for giving one to the Longbottoms!"

Remus started and McGonagall gasped.

"He told me because it's all getting too much for him. He was so desperate he even wanted to believe that Professor Dumbledore was still alive." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Remus shoot him a quick, appraising look: Remus now knew what had prompted Harry to ask about Dumbledore not being dead. "Look," Harry shot out, "I think Malfoy's blurting stuff out because part of him _wants_ to. I think part of him wants Voldemort to lose!"

"Or maybe, Harry," Ron spoke as though explaining something very difficult to someone who'd had a knock on the head, "maybe Malfoy's just thick and never thought it all through when he was blabbing stuff?"

Harry closed his eyes and forced himself to take a calming breath, "_And_ Malfoy said that Voldemort would be after Ginny – because he thought - Voldemort thought - well - "

He couldn't bear to get the words out, that anyone thought he might genuinely have been 'interested'.

"The Death Eaters chasing Ginny was the obvious choice, Harry," said Remus evenly, smoothing over Harry's discomfort. "Good job she's still safe at Hogwarts. The fact that she was your 'girlfriend' makes her a Death Eater target no matter what."

There was a silence at that, even from Ron.

Ginny was in a precarious position.

The silence was broken by McGonagall, "Well at least I can guarantee we won't be expelling _her_. At least with all that Scintillation nonsense, she was only party to dosing herself and no-one else!"

Remus looked up, "Regulus could have had Horcruxes in the vault other than the cup, Harry! The locket? The mystery Horcruxes?"

"Er …" Harry had a flash of clarity. "No! If there'd been other Horcruxes there, Malfoy would have found them! He had the time to and he must know what the Horcruxes are – including the mystery ones, right? If there were more in that vault, Malfoy would've got them. And he only had the cup."

"Are you sure? He could have had another Horcrux hidden in a pocket."

"I'm sure. He wouldn't have been so desperate to get the cup back if he'd had. He only needs one Horcrux to deal for his mum's life…" Harry squirmed but knew he might as well get it all out the way now, "but he's got the ring Horcrux …"

"What?" cried McGonagall.

"Well it's not like I gave it to him deliberately," yelped Harry. "And it's defunct anyway! It's not like he can use it for anything!"

"It's the Peverell ring!" remonstrated McGonagall. "And according to what you told us, it might even have been the Gryffindor Horcrux. A Founder object. It might have a significance none of us yet understands!"

Remus sounded as though he were trying to think of a sensible way forward, "Look, let's test the potential Horcruxes, at least we can do that much."

He trailed his wand in a line across the cup and the box and a ribbon of green light flowed over them, looping about them lightly and then binding ever tighter. Remus' face held the uttermost concentration as his wand began to judder and Harry realised that he was using non-verbal magic. Harry's unblinking gaze kept darting between Remus, the wand-tip and the objects.

The objects were now trembling upon the desk-top, being squeezed ever-tighter by the encircling ribbon of spell-power. As Remus concentrated ever more fiercely, they began to actually rattle against the desk-top.

Remus now looked deathly-pale. Harry was willing something to happen so that it could all just _stop_. And then it did. The cup glowed green and the box blue. The connection to Remus' wand snapped and Remus slumped, almost toppling backwards, to be steadied by Ron who guided Remus into a chair.

"It's done," gasped Remus.

Harry and Ron stared at the glowing objects, whose colours faded back to normal even as they watched.

"Er … what's done?" asked Ron.

McGonagall spoke curtly, "The cup is a Horcrux, the box is not."

"At least we've got the cup, Harry," Remus commiserated.

"And we do have a fresh lead …" McGonagall spoke slowly now, there was something very cool about her tone. "I think Draco Malfoy told Harry something valuable when he spoke about Neville."

Harry was suddenly caught by her tone: there was something so very controlled about it.

He noticed Remus looking at her, brows drawing together and mouth narrowing.

"There is something which is not widely known about Neville," Professor McGonagall's voice was now unsettlingly contained and even, "which if what Malfoy says is true about the Longbottoms and the Horcrux, means that we might have a witness who saw the Horcrux in question."

Now Remus was giving Professor McGonagall a very dark look.

"Neville was in the house when his parents were being tortured," stated McGonagall.

Ron started and gasped. Harry went very still: McGonagall's tone was so cool – _too_ cool, _too_ contained.

"He had been Body-bound, Silencio'd, and hidden behind a Concealment Charm and was found with his drooling, broken parents and a dead Death Eater turning black on the kitchen floor – that was the real reason why he could see Thestrals. After the investigation, his Grandmother dosed Neville zealously with Forgetfulness Potion – though I rather think she overdid it and that's why his memory's always been so poor."

Harry felt the hairs slowly rising on the back of his neck. Just where was all this going?

"The important part," continued McGonagall in a controlled, business-like fashion, "is that Mathilda Nott gave a Horcrux to the Longbottoms, but we can conjecture that they couldn't have passed it on to anyone else or we'd know about it by now. So if they had no time to pass it on and they only had one chance to hide things …"

The inference was obvious: Neville had been sitting with a Horcrux - bound and gagged but still able to see and hear - even as his parents had been mercilessly tortured, mere feet from him.

There was a long, long silence.

"Well I'm _glad_ he can't remember." Ron's grim voice sounded oddly rough and thick, though his chin jutted determinedly. "His gran might be a bit bonkers and over-did it, but she was trying to do the right thing."

Harry, instead, was watching the composed-looking McGonagall, and he saw that Remus was also giving her a covert, watchful look.

McGonagall raised her chin in a determined fashion as though to speak, Remus' mouth tightened, readying to issue a disapproving response, but -

"NO! I won't have it!" Harry yelled. "I know what you're thinking, and I won't have it!"

"Won't have what?" said Ron, looking between Harry and the two Professors.

McGonagall spoke quickly. There was something desperate in her tone, her self-control breaking. "It is a reported fact that the Aurors found something hidden with Neville which was taken to the Unspeakables, and given what we now know about the Horcruxes, we must find out what that object was! We can reverse the effects of the Forgetfulness Potion so that he can tell us!"

"_WHAT?"_ yelled Ron, catching up with the implications. "But he'll remember everything! You – you are _not _going to do that to him! You don't even know that whatever was with him _was_ a Horcrux! It might all be for nothing!"

"Well it was hardly likely to have been a baby's rattle, Mr. Weasley! There must have been something notable about it for it to have been taken into custody! I don't want to do this, but we might have to!"

"If you 'don't want to do this' then _don't!_ It's an easy enough decision!"

"You Know Who is gathering his forces! We no longer have the luxury of niceties!"

"There is no proof whatsoever that there was even a Horcrux there!"

Remus swallowed, it was as though he was his voice forcing to be level, "Actually, Ron, there is. Because if it was a Horcrux, it explains something - presuming that Bellatrix was after information and not simply torturing Frank and Alice for 'fun'. It explains why Frank and Alice held out without cracking. Bellatrix would have been questioning them about the whereabouts of the Horcrux but they couldn't tell her because it was with Neville, mere feet away. If they gave up the Horcrux, they gave up Neville. And they could never do that."

Harry actually felt his breath shiver in his chest. That was such a really horrible thought.

"Well – well," a horrified Ron sought support in the practicalities. "We can get the information on the object from the Ministry! Someone's there's bound to know. They took the object, they'll have the records. Nigellus can do it. He's in the Ministry now!"

"Nigellus is just a painting!" McGonagall's voice was shaking. "There are limits to what he can achieve. The quickest and most secure source is Neville!"

"_Secure?"_ shrieked Ron. "Secure for _who!?_ Neville will remember everything that happened to his mum and dad – _all of it!"_

"Neville would have the _choice_ of whether to release his memories!"

"_Choice? _What choice? There's no 'choice'! Give him the 'choice' and he'll feel he has to say yes! _It's not right!"_

"It isn't about 'right', Mr. Weasley, it's about necessity!" McGonagall sounded desperate.

"Come off it! Look how Harry's memories of his mum's death affected him – and he hardly saw anything!"

The situation was so horrible, the choice so awful …

Ron lurched for another tack, "And if the thing was a Horcrux, don't you think the Unforgivables would have found out by now? No matter what, it's worth sending someone into the Ministry to snoop about!"

Harry abruptly found his voice.

"_No!_ Not that! Scrimgeour is a killer!"

Scrimgeour had killed Madam Amelia Bones.

Both Remus and McGonagall fixed Harry with startled looks but Ron was grimly determined. "Look, Harry – Scrimgeour isn't personally a killer. At The Burrow, Moody died in a fight when those spells were accidentally ricocheting around!"

_Moody?_

Ron caught up short, blinking, realising what he'd just said.

"Moody's _dead?_ Are you saying that the Auror's killed Moody - and you didn't tell _me?"_ Harry swirled around wildly, _"_You all knew and _none of you told me?" _A horribly cold sensation gripped him and he rounded wildly on Ron. "What happened to Hedwig? Where's Hedwig?"

Ron's expression told him everything he needed to know.

There was a high pitched cry in Harry's throat that was so big, it couldn't actually get out.

Ron's mouth shifted and then firmed – "Look, Harry, Right now, the point is Neville. We have to send someone into the Ministry for answers. It's worth the risk!"

Harry's voice found its scream. "It isn't worth the risk because Scrimgeour killed Madam Bones!" 

Remus started and McGonagall gasped, hand to her throat. Ron gawped.

"Malfoy told me," continued Harry – but it was the wrong thing to say as Ron's expression shifted from aghast to disgust. "Well he _did!" _yelled Harry. _"_He said that Scrimgeour must've done it – or ordered it done - because he was the one who benefited from the crime! Voldemort didn't care whether she lived or died! It was Scrimgeour!"

"Are you seriously taking Malfoy's word for that? Malfoy's word for _anything?"_

"Malfoy hasn't been lying to me!"

Ron looked ready to burst, but fell back on: "Well no matter what, we can't subject Neville to this. We can't give him that 'choice'!"

"But we need a better plan than '_Ready, Steady, Go'!"_

"What we need to be able to is tell the difference between a good plan and a bad!"

"Tell the difference? -_" _Harry's head felt as though it were about to explode. "I'm not the bloke who couldn't spot that Hermione was Confundusing McLaggan from the stands, when both me and your sister did straight away!"

Remus and McGonagall glanced, puzzled, from Harry to Ron and back again.

Ron stared at Harry, open-mouthed.

Harry blinked, realising what he'd just said and what that now meant.

"You knew …?" Ron's voice was a croak. "You knew all along and you didn't -"

There was a shuffling noise from the doorway. "What choice, Harry? Ron said there was a choice – what choice, Harry?"

All swiveled to see a stunned-looking Neville standing there.

xxx

_NO!_

Harry froze. "Harry?" Neville was astonished, looking uncomprehendingly from the abruptly silenced Harry and Ron, to Remus and McGonagall, and then back again. "I have a choice? What choice, Harry?" 

Oh … _NO!_

Harry's mouth shifted silently, he did not know what to say. Neville trusted him. Neville would do what he said!

McGonagall broke first, like a sprinter when the starter-pistol sounds.

"Neville, I have something to put to you -"

Only for Ron to catch up with her. "Get out of this room, Neville! Don't listen to McGonagall!"

"Ronald Weasley, how dare you!"

Neville tried to cut across Professor McGonagall, evidently it was very important to explain why he'd come to Remus' office, "I've got something to -"

"We have to find out about that thing!" McGonagall shouted on, ignoring Neville.

"You will _NOT_ put someone in that situation!" Ron yelled. "You've got no right!"

"But Professor, something's -"

"It's not about right – it's about necessity!"

"Oh, cut it out! If we just wait a bit we can find out some other way!"

"Don't you dare talk to me like that, young man, and we might not have 'a bit' left to wait!"

"But Professor, there's something -"

"You will not put people in impossible situations!"

"But Prof -"

"May I remind you what is at stake!"

"_WILL EVERYONE PLEASE BE QUIET AND LISTEN TO ME?"_

The entire room silenced and turned to look, open-mouthed, at the now-roaring Neville.

He coughed, "It's Ginny – Ginny Weasley. She's – she's run away from Hogwarts."


	24. Chapter 24

Title: (Chapter 24)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 

**Chapter 24**

"So, Draco, what gifts do you have for our Dark Lord?"

Draco stared at the slightly smirking Mortlake and realised something: he never had liked that smarmy bastard. It was something to do with all those experiments on animals he did. It was somehow unsavoury.

He turned away and tried to make stark terror look like sneering dismissal.

What gifts did he have? – None, to his badger-buggering, bollocksy _hell!_

He was stuck with the Death Eaters, having to report on his mission, and he had nothing!

Well, at least he could congratulate himself on one thing: he hadn't yet thrown up with fear in Death Eater company. Wobbly voice? Sure. Unable to meet the anyone's eye and guts fluttering with fear? Sure. But actual vomit? No. It might be something to brag about to his grandchildren, if he ever managed to have any. Presuming he even made his next birthday. Presuming he ever managed to get a girlfriend he actually even _liked_.

For the second time in less than a week he was standing in the 'Chamber of Ceremonies' and having to explain himself: in this case imminently having to explain why he'd got nothing in the way of an active Horcrux whilst attempting to keep a slew of secrets. Secrets about what had really happened on that tower-top. Secrets about the 'helpers' and information he'd kept from the Dark Lord. Secrets about Potter, about his failure to grab a Horcrux, and about how his allegiance was to his own family rather than to the Death Eaters. And all that without getting killed. A real Four Star Emergency for a Young And Growing Death Eater, this was. If he got out of this one alive he could nominate it for Page 82 of The Worst Case Scenario For Young Wizards: Dealing With Death Eaters With Only An Empty Matchbox And A Snotty Attitude.

_So, Draco, what gifts do you have for our Dark Lord? …_ Well, what did he have? He must have _something!_

He had that ring, but -

The light, shuffling noise of Apparition all around him: Death Eaters arriving, their cloaks swirling as they landed in the dark.

Could his spies help him? Slughorn was a bust, he'd only worked for him under duress anyway, and since he'd sent that note telling him to get out of Hogwarts or else, he would be even less dependable than ever. That other one he and Aunty had special use of was brittle at best, and her powers were diminished to an extent anyway from the pressure of the continual Imperius she was under. He could be rescued from here in the same way he'd been rescued from the bank-vault – after all, if his faithful retainer could get in and out of Gringotts and take him with him, then this place wouldn't be any trouble. But if he cut and run so visibly, then he'd be estranged from the Death Eaters with Mother still trapped among them, and then he'd be even less able to help her!

He felt his mind shift away from the sheer dread of his situation. A mental jump and –

Botheration! Why couldn't the Death Eaters ever have meetings anywhere cool? In fact 'cool'? - he'd even settle for _clean!_ Thank God he had access to a totally devoted House-elf who knew how to get the stink of mildew out of a good cloak! If it wasn't for that, even his copious supplies of clothing would be running out! He knew it was very Muggle, but hadn't the Death Eaters ever even _heard _of air-freshener!

His thoughts were interrupted by another soft, fluttering arrival on his left, like a black moth alighting.

Not Voldemort.

He felt a lurch of sick relief: he could taste the acid of it in his mouth.

It was not Voldemort – not yet.

But it would be, imminently and –

_He had to get his story straight!_

They were going to ask him what he'd been about, what he'd achieved, where he'd been, who he'd been with!

What could he tell them that wasn't going to get him killed?

He didn't have a live Horcrux! He didn't even have that box! He'd even stopped Potter from being killed again! He couldn't even use his lucky-juice right now – even the stupidest of the Death Eaters would notice that something was up if he held up a hand, said 'give me a moment', and tipped his throat back and guzzled the last of the Gold Stuff! All he had was the ex-Horcrux ring and - did this last one even count as an advantage? – that two-way mirror he'd gotten during that bank-vault fiasco with that prat, Potter. Lucky it hadn't been smashed when he'd been chased by that dragon. Honestly! Chased by a dragon! He had all the crappy luck. Why couldn't it have gone after Potter? Why did it have to be fascinated by him!

As to the mirror, Malfoy suspected that Potter had the other 'half' of it: it had been in Potter's possession when he'd last seen it. But what could he do with it – rip it out and scream for help? Besides, help from _Potter?_ Even if the sheer ignominy of asking didn't kill him, Potter's idiocy would.

_Hullo, I'm Potter – I'm famous, I've got a scar. Did I mention that I've got a scar? I'm a bit stupid and rely on luck to get out of situations, but did I mention that I've got a scar?_

Potter wasn't even brave – he was just too dumb to be scared!

As the Death Eaters flocked to the cellar, Malfoy knew that his thoughts were becoming increasingly hysterical, but he couldn't seem to make himself buckle down to the point: _what was he going to do now?_ It was too awful to think on because when he did think on it his thoughts hit him in an avalanche of impossibility. He couldn't get out! He couldn't save Mother! He had nothing! He'd practically had that cup – it had been in his hand and then bastard, bollocksy, bird-brain _Potter_ had come and taken it off him! What was he going to say now? He –

His mind flexed away again.

And Potter's bloody Quidditch 'expertise'! He simply had the fastest broom – that's all. He had a _Firebolt_ for God's sake – the fastest professional broom on the planet: _World Cup winning teams used it!_ There were times when Potter had only won matches because of the edge that broom gave him. In fifth-year, he, Malfoy, had won that snitch. It had been his! And then Potter powers up and knocks his hand out of the way and all the Gryffs just cheer! If it had been the other way round and he had done that to Potter, he knew you'd have never have heard the last of how he had 'cheated'!

"I hope you have some success to report, Draco. The Dark Lord deplores failure."

Malfoy forced a smirk onto his face.

But he had nothing! And he had only minutes before that came out. But he would keep up the pretence until the last second because something might happen between now and then, he might think of something, he might yet be saved, he might –

And God, the sheer, utter, ball-aching _embarrassment _of those stupid _rumours_ about himself and Ginny Weasley!

He didn't know where people had gotten the idea from! He'd hardly ever spoken to her!He had denied the gossip strenuously of course, but it hadn't quite squashed it all though and in his Fifth form he'd once had to hex a sneering Warrington so hard that he was left with a face like a bowl of cornflakes. At about that same time, some Slytherin wit had even hexed reindeer horns onto Parkinson's head: a cuckold.

Not that she'd been clever enough to get the joke. Not very clever, was Parkinson. One more reason he'd always found her rather tiresome.

But the gossip had never quite stopped …

The Girl-Weasel? She was a Gryffindor, for God's sake, and a Bloodtraitor to boot! Not to mention _poor_. Could you actually catch 'poor'? Was it contagious?

He had always been secretly nervous of Father finding out about those _rumours_. Father could be so …difficult. And for God's sake, but he'd have thought that his banging Parkinson last school year would have finally put paid to the Weasel-gossip – but it hadn't helped though. Not even Parkinson had really believed that he was over the Girl-Weasel. In the Lower 6th, he hadn't even been able to so much as _look_ in the vague direction of Ginny Weasley without setting Parkinson off.

He should have known what he was in for on the train-ride into school last year. One mention of Girl-Weasel from Zabini, and Parkinson had been watching him like an alchemist hovering over a crucible, waiting for the Philosopher's Stone to appear. And Ginny Weasley – in the Slug Club, with _Potter!_ He'd put a stop to that one pronto. Among the things he'd blackmailed the Slug into doing was dropping Girl-Weasel from that bloody club. He hadn't fancied her being so close to an ex-Death Eater - and worse: he hadn't fancied her being so close to _Potter!_

"So what have you got for the Dark Lord, Draco?"

Malfoy smirked on auto-pilot, an automatic defense mechanism. "Something he will appreciate."

Like _what?_

_LIKE WHAT!?_

_He didn't have anything, he -_

Not that the rumours that he fancied Weasel-bint were true. Well – yes, it was true that he _fancied_ her, he'd admit that much, but lots of boys did, it wasn't exactly unusual, he wasn't the only one! But that rumour that he was … He was NOT obsessed! He didn't 'care' about her! He _didn't!_ But even the 'fancying' bit would have been an uncomfortable discussion to have with Father - what with Father having always denigrated the Weasels and then gotten embroiled in that really rather unseemly fist-fight with the Weasel's loser-dad that time in Flourish and BlottsThat had been really rather embarrassing. Father had behaved like such a _Pleb_ and -

God, and what a fool she'd been making of herself over that – that _thing _she'd had for that _wanker_, Potter! The way she chased after him! He didn't even _like _her, anyone could see that! Couldn't she see that it was just a stupid crush she had? That it wasn't real? Mooning after him, _in luurve_? She didn't even _know_ him!

It had been ludicrously apparent the first time he'd ever seen her in Flourish and Blotts - when he'd been winding up Potter by pointing out the obvious: you've got a girlfriend. And God, but she'd been so pathetically grateful to get those books off Scarhead – like he was bestowing some great honour. Hadn't she been able to see that Potter had just dumped that heavy collection of rubbishy Lockhart books in her cauldron simply because he hadn't wanted them? He wasn't giving her a gift, he'd just been palming off his unwanted trash! And the thoughtlessness of it! Just slamming them on her like that and turning away. Potter hadn't even offered to carry them for her!

And just today, Potter had stood there in that bloody bank-vault, screeching accusations about Father had tried to kill Ginny Weasley. Anything could have happened in that battle at the Department of Mysteries – he only had Potter's word that Father had threatened her. There was no proof! Father wasn't like that! He _wasn't!_ He –

… _your father is a man of ill-faith …_

He jumped. Aunt Bellatrix. She had just arrived. He could sense her black eyes burning into him with anxiety and concern. And that was very frightening indeed, because if she was scared for him, then he should be damn well terrified!

_Mother?_ Was Mother here? Malfoy tried to scan the room without appearing to look anywhere at all.

She was not there.

A relief.

Because whatever Voldemort might have planned for him, at least there had been no arrangement made that his mother witness it. At least that refinement had been spared him – or possibly they simply hadn't thought of it yet. And at that, he wanted to be sick and -

And that bloody Valentines card! How could she send _him _one? Making a holy-show of herself in that corridor! That childish little poem she'd written – it had probably taken her an entire study period to come up with it. The whole corridor had been laughing, but he had known it was her! It couldn't be anyone else. He'd been so furious. So _frustrated!_ Couldn't she see that he'd treat her so much _better_ than Potter did? And then there was that ludicrous Get Well Card. The whole school – well, him anyhow - had learned about how Potter had hardly waited ten minutes to throw it away. And it had been utterly obvious that she'd only gone to the Yule Ball with Longbottom in the hope of getting a dance off Potter. And it had been a fair bet to say that Corner and Thomas had only been ploys to get the Potter-Prat's attention, too. And that potions farrago? That love potion nonsense? Ginny Weasley had made an utter fool of herself with all that. He bet she was getting hell at school over it now. He could have told her she would: he knew what people were really like. And she'd never had that many friends – in her early years at Hogwarts she'd only had Creevey: one more reason not to like that sniveling little scrote.

The other girls didn't like her. They never had. Even after she had gotten all 'popular', she had only really had acquaintances, not friends. He had watched. He _knew_. In her early years at school she had been too quiet for other girls to like and then she'd re-invented herself into someone too brash. From frump to floozy. It was hard to tell which one was real – no, he _knew_ her! It wasn't the brash, mouthy, hard-faced, little hair-flipper. His Ginny, the real Ginny, was a _good _girl and -

And Ginny Weasley had just gone along with it all.

With all that love potion stuff.

She had known that Potter was being dosed senseless. Being robbed of his will. Being made an utter fool of.

And she hadn't stopped it.

Hadn't she known how foul that whole business was?

She hadn't, had she? It was just naivety? It was just unthinking, girlish simplicity? He couldn't have got her that wrong – not after all those years of watching. He _couldn't_ have. So she _mustn't_ have understood it. Because even he knew that love potioning someone was really dreadful. If Parkinson had dosed him up, he'd've had a fit. And that would have been just the start of it. Love potion? It was like rape! Or the Imperius – the same thing really.

_Or the Imperius – the same thing really …_

If he was someone else right now, he'd have to shoot himself for what he was doing with that Order double-agent. And okay, so he hadn't flung the spell, but he was getting the advantage and not stopping it … but there was Mother at stake and -

And Ginny Weasley had just gone along with it because it suited her boyfriend plans.

No mother at stake. No life and death. Just who snogged who.

Pathetic.

And now there was -

Snape.

Right next to him, right now.

Arriving via Apparition.

Staring straight ahead as ever and standing just at the edge of Malfoy's vision.

The man was inscrutable. A block of black and white granite. A sphinx.

A sphinx who'd dug a 'box' out of Potter's mum's grave.

And then hidden the fact.

Because what was the betting that Snape must have known it was there all along? If he had known, then he had lied to the Dark Lord when he had said that he didn't know where the box was. And if he had lied to the Dark Lord, could he yet be an ally? But if Snape had _not_ known where the box was last time around, and he had _not_ lied to the Dark Lord, and he was indeed still 'the most faithful', and he did make an overture to him – then he was dead.

_Approaching Snape like that was a terrible risk, it could kill him!_

And besides, Snape clearly didn't like Father – never had if what he had said about ill-faith had been anything to go by! How could Malfoy trust him? Father wasn't of ill-faith! He _wasn't!_ He was difficult to please, he could be very demanding – _but he was not of ill-faith!_ And the thought that Father would somehow betray him … _be on your guard against your father …_ Father wouldn't betray him! He was _Father!_ He was -

No! The Girl-Weasel? She just hadn't _realised_, that's all! All that love potion stuff? She was above it! She was above Potter! The potioning thing had all been some kind of … _accident!_ It must have been! She was a pure, unpolluted, untainted, chaste, thing! A _sacred_ thing! And if he could just _get _her, then his life would be so _different_. He would be different. He would have proved he was different. Because why would she choose him otherwise? If he could just _get_ her, if she would just _be his_, then he could reach some white, cool, clean space within himself and he could –

But she was a Weasley and she didn't want him and why had he been so compelled to pick someone he knew from the start he could not possibly get and –

_Why_ did she not want him? She knew he wanted her. He knew she knew. He liked to hide it from himself, but he knew she knew. What did he have to do? How did he have to be? _Why _didn't she want him!

And now he was scarred. And not just with that rope scar down his arm from Potter's over-touchy pet that time - no not just with that, but with that – that _thing_ on his chest. The Sectumsempra scar. A horrid, gnarled fist gripped over his heart. He didn't even want to look at it, but sometimes he forced himself to – as though if he just stared hard enough it would lose the power to shock.

His Talking Mirror had gone silent the first time it had seen it. Gone silent and then cleared its throat with a cough and then made a show of recapturing its cheerful, barmaid-type spirit and saying 'never mind that duckie, you've still got the prettiest face I've seen in a long while'.

He had known how bad it was then.

After the chest scar thing, he wouldn't even let Parkinson have a gawp. He didn't want her even touching it – he didn't want even the risk of her touching it. And Ginny Weasley wouldn't want him now. Not now that he was ugly. He was 'dirty' now. Next to her - now he even _looked_ ugly and twisted.

_Voldemort!_

Dear God – he was here. Had Apparated, just now. All whirl of cloak and flaming red eyes and green skin and … that terrible _smell _that reeked off him – the smell of death.

Malfoy absolutely froze.

And attuned as he was, he could sense Snape freezing too.

Did that mean Snape was on his side? Was against the Death Eaters? Or was he just one more power-seeker on the make?

And Voldemort had started speaking now – giving one of his interminable speeches … _'It is to be a momentous night, my Death Eaters …_' God, he was a long-winded git! Whatever he had on his mind, why couldn't he ever just _say_ it instead of going right round the houses! _'… A prize is about to fall into my lap …' _Oh get on with it, you boring bastard! _'… Our forces are being strengthened and positioned, even as I speak, they will emerge when we are ready …' _

And that Potter could somehow help him in all this was absurd! Potter couldn't even help _himself!_ And the Death Eaters would find out all the things he'd done. And maybe he should just get off the fence and chuck his lot in with them and hope for the best? He should dob Potter in it! He _should!_ It might be the only way! If he secured his place with the Death Eaters, then maybe that was the best way to help Mother? If he secured his place with the Death Eaters then when they won he could protect Ginny Weasley too.

And the rest of the school.

Even _Granger!_

Granger – God, what an annoying little priss from Prude City. But she was clever and clever was something to be admired and the thought – the thought – the thought that - God, Voldemort was _staring_ at him – but the thought of having to stand by and watch her be tortured, screaming and raw, and having to force a smirk on his face because there was nothing else for it because he couldn't do anything to stop it. And Voldemort had tortured that Death Eater – just left the Crucio on him … And in that bank-vault he hadn't been joking about that gang-bang thing with Granger. He had meant it. The Death Eaters … if they got hold of Granger … He'd told her once, 'keep your bushy head down, Granger' … and he'd shut her up that time when she'd been about to tear off on one against Umbitch and so kept the penalty down to a few measly housepoints instead of a full-on flogging in the Great Hall. But to the Death Eaters, Granger was just one more piece of grub-blood filth, and one who was cleverer than they.

They'd resent her for that.

As a punishment for her 'presumptuousness', they'd rape her to death.

And grunt with pleasure while they did it.

Voldemort shifted his stance and from the very corner of his straight-ahead gaze Malfoy saw him approach.

_I'm running out of options! _What was for the best? To confess that he'd at least been clever enough to have gotten _this close_ to a Horcrux … which carried the corollary of confessing that he'd then lost it – or to hide the whole thing?

If he confessed all now and threw himself on the mercy of –

But the Death Eaters didn't have any mercy and -

_Voldemort was approaching and that stench was filling the air and –_

He had so desperately wanted Dumbledore to be alive.

So. Desperately.

That sudden realisation that he ought to be, that by logic he must be, had burst like a beacon in the dark.

And now he didn't even have that, because Potter had taken that away too. Potter had so obviously been utterly convinced that the old codger was dead. And that had been the most compelling argument of all: that there was no way that Codger would have let Scar-head carry on without him. Not unless he really was too dead to do anything about it.

But he hadn't been able to see the Thestrals. That was an incontrovertible fact. That must mean something! It had to mean something!

_Oh my God, Voldemort is coming to stand next to me!_

"I am disappointed – you have been a failure and I expected so much more of you."

Malfoy's heart nearly stopped, he practically jumped on the spot. But Voldemort hadn't been talking to him – he was still talking to Professor Snape.

And something was very wrong, because from the corner of his eye, Malfoy could see that Snape was almost rigid, staring ahead.

It was fear.

A sensation Malfoy was coming to know very well in the company of the Death Eaters.

Was Snape afraid for the same reason he was? That, intrinsically, he was not on their side?

"I thought you were my friend, Severus. I require that box. My plans are imminent. And yet you cannot complete this one simple thing for me?"

Voldemort was talking to Professor Snape, who had lost the box to Potter - but only after having hidden it from Voldemort in the first place?

"Sometimes, Severus, my Death Eaters need a little … encouragement…"

And Voldemort suddenly had his wand in his hand and Malfoy saw Professor Snape freeze and with the loss of the box, Snape had nothing and Voldemort didn't like failure, and -

"The ring."

"What?"

Voldemort whirled down upon Malfoy.

"He got the ring." Malfoy was blurting his words though his throat felt desert-dry. "The Horcrux ring. He gave it to me to cover for _my_ failings. He got the ring and he gave it to me. It's here." Malfoy autonomically reached into a pocket and handed it over.

_Damn. Damn! DAMN! _

_Why can't I just keep my big mouth shut? Because now I don't even have the ring!_

Voldemort greeted the ring like it had been an old friend, "And just when I thought I'd never see it again … precious to me, the only reason I did not have anyone desperately searching for it was that I had a copy. And for my purposes a copy would have done as well as the original …"

_What? What was Voldemort blathering on about? _

But Malfoy didn't have the luxury of analysis, because that bit about the Professor giving him the ring had been a lie, _and_ Professor Snape knew it. Would he tell on him? If he didn't, was it a sign that he could be trusted? Or would it just be a sign that Snape was a Death Eater who simply knew well enough to keep his mouth shut when things were going his way?

There was no telling either way! He'd just thrown away the advantage of the ring for nothing!

And he had just lied to the Dark Lord – but at least he hadn't looked into the Dark Lord's eyes when he'd said it. And that was what the Professor had advised him wasn't it: never look directly at the Dark Lord if you tell a lie? He'd scoffed at him then. But had that been a huge clue too? That Professor Snape had been forced – over time - to devise survival strategies precisely because he had regularly been lying?

"It's rather odd that you choose to tell me that, Draco – and get yourself into trouble by losing the bargaining chip of the ring."

Buggery, buggery, buggery - "I -" it was true: it was odd – odd for a self-serving Death Eater, anyway. He needed a reason! He needed an explanation! He – "I think loyalty is important."

God, what a load of crap, but would Voldemort believe it?

Malfoy didn't dare look to find out. Instead he rattled on.

"He took The Vow – Professor Snape. He took a Vow for me. Mother -" he cleared his throat – "Mother told me."

God, could he be any more pathetic?

"You think loyalty is important? So do I." Voldemort's words were silky and Draco almost half relaxed but then Voldemort turned to Professor Snape and asked, "But Severus, why did you surrender your find to Draco?"

And Malfoy's mind exploded. Because that was a good question. _Why?_ _What was the answer?_ And Snape wouldn't have a clue – he'd just had all this ring stuff just dumped on him! Malfoy internally shouted at himself: _come on,_ _think!_ _Why would Professor Snape –_

"It was the Vow -" Malfoy's voice was a croak as he interrupted the silence, "- the Vow he took to protect me. A bit stupidly -" he actually managed to scrape out a rough laugh and stunned himself with the realisation that the laugh was genuine – "there was no sell-by date. He gave me the ring because he still had to protect me." His laughter rattled out of him and then he stilled and shot a sideways look at Snape. "One of those minor details a _proper _Death Eater would have seen to."

A proper Death Eater. Implying that Professor Snape was not and that Malfoy knew it. A message. A signal. Had Snape understood?

Voldemort laughed.

Malfoy was coming to truly hate the sound of that laugh: it felt like sandpaper on the skin.

"So you value loyalty, Draco? But at your own expense? Why did you give up the ring for Severus?"

_Come on: WHY? I need a reason. I need -_

"I didn't need it: I've got something else."

_He had? WHAT did he have? He had NOTHING! He had -_

"And what do you have Draco?"

"I've got this."

And he handed out the scroll – Granger's idiotic little parchment of lists and ticks and crosses, the very embodiment of her neat, orderly, clever, concise mind.

He was giving up Granger.

"I've got a list of what Potter and his lot know about the Horcruxes."

Voldemort almost snatched it off him, gaze raking over it, muttering its contents as he swiftly scanned them. He laughed, sharp, shard-like, and relieved. "They don't even know where to look and they don't even know what one of them is!" His laughter halted, and he looked directly at Malfoy. "How do you know this is the sum of their knowledge? Whose list is it?"

Malfoy steeled himself to drop Granger in it. He had made his choice when he had just blurted about the list. He had chosen to hand Granger over. He couldn't stop now – he had to throw her in it. He had left himself no option! This was _survival._ But they would kill her, they would rape her – all the moreso if they realised what a danger her mind was to them. But he _had _to be tough! He had to be hard. And the Dark Lord was looking straight at him. He couldn't lie now. There was too much at stake. And it was only Granger. She meant nothing! She was just a querulous faced little Muggleborn! And he _couldn't_ tell a direct lie. Not now. He had to do what was necessary. He could afford nothing less. He couldn't outright lie now – it would be taking a terrible risk, it -

"Look at me, Draco. Who's list is it?"

Malfoy stared flat at him.

"McGonagall's."

_FOR GOD'S SAKE, WHAT KIND OF STUPID BASTARD AM I?_

To tell a direct lie straight to the Dark Lord's face! What would be the consequences? How was he going to get away with it? How –

A terrible, terrible pressure in his mind. A huge weight bearing upon him. Almost like being physically shoved. Like a tonnage of water bearing down upon too-flimsy lock-gates with jets of it starting to spurt through previously unknown cracks in the wood and metal. He couldn't hold it. The assault was too much. The Dark Lord had spotted some flicker in Malfoy's gaze when he had lied and he was using all the force of his Leglimens ability to root out any heresy. Under the enourmous pressure, Malfoy was slipping. He knew that Voldemort was going to get in – and then he'd run amok through all his secrets! He would find out everything. His trying to switch sides on the tower. His angling to protect Potter's flank. His efforts to save Ginny Weasley from the Dark Lord's attentions. His efforts to protect Granger – a piece of 'Mudblood Filth'.

Draco Malfoy was less than ten seconds away from being very, very dead.

"I know you are hiding something from me, Draco."

Malfoy was almost burning up with the effort of resistance, and with the effort of trying not to let it show that he _was_ resisting. Next to him, Snape was staring ferociously at him, as though willing him on – or willing him to fail, it was impossible to say. Aunt Bella was on her tip-toes, almost spontaneously combusting in her anxiety for her nephew and Malfoy was trying as hard as he could but –

That bastard Voldemort wasn't even _sweating!_ And the pressure was too much, and he was going to get found out, and he was hiding something, and his resistance was wafer thin now and Aunt Bellatrix was shifting in nervous agitation but he didn't have any way out and – the sudden solution:

_If he wants a secret, give him one!_

He did have a way out. One last, desperate turn of a card.

He yielded suddenly under the pressure and Voldemort abruptly toppled into a flashing montage of memories that Malfoy was prepared to give him.

Voldemort had known that Malfoy was hiding a secret? Fine. He could have one. He could find out all about his dirty little secret over the Girl-Weasel. Give him that. Give it to him in as lurid a manner as possible, and he might not go digging any further!

A flashing kaleidoscope of memories: staring at Ginny Weasley's tits that time in her too-tight school-blouse; staring at her up-tilted arse as she rode a broom; that knowing, smirking look she had given him that time, passing him in a school corridor, sniggering at him, knowing he wanted her – No! Not that one! Give him something that wouldn't hurt so much if Voldemort used it against him! Give him anything else, because anything else was better than that – give him: _wanking off_. Wanking off to fantasies of Ginny Weasley. Whacking off, hard and fast, panting and hot, a low churning in his gut and then -

Voldemort almost wracked with laughter.

"Oh, you do take after your mother's side of the family, Draco. Your father must be so irked – the Malfoy name but all of the Black theatrics."

He'd bought it.

Voldemort had bought it.

Malfoy stood there, clammy in his cloak, breathing heavy, but that had nothing to do with sex. He was alive and, almost moreso, utterly relieved that Voldemort had gone no further. Because the sharp truth was that he could never actually get off to Ginny Weasley. Not all the way. He could fantasise about her, grow hard thinking of her, but at that last – he lost her. He'd memorised everything about her: breasts, hips, hair, waist, even the plumply dimpled backs of her knees. In his fantasies, he'd besported her through a thousand positions and tableaux, but always at that hot, twisting, final, peak – there was nothing. Always – _always_ – at that very last, she slipped him.

It was never her face he saw in that hot gush of release.

Sometimes he saw nothing. Sometimes there was just the memory of the fantasy. Sometimes it was someone else entirely. But it was never Ginny Weasley at the last in his fantasies.

She slipped him at that very last … or at that very last, he slipped her.

He never thought of it that way: that it was not that she escaped him, but that he had never truly wanted her. That at that very last, when his self-control was at its weakest, his mind forced him to the point: he wanted his fantasy version of her and not the reality. At that very last, when his self-control was at its weakest, his mind flexed and tried to throw off the yolk of servitude – to overthrow his enslavement to the fantasy of 'getting Ginny Weasley'.

Not that enslavement and servitude were alien to his fantasies …

"Yes Draco …" Voldemort's voice was amused and insinuating, "and the Weasley girl is a Pureblood – a suitable consort …"

Malfoy froze at Voldemort's knowing tone – he wished he could freeze to an arctic block. He saw Aunt Bella shift about fretfully. He recalled the times she had tried to teach him her method of Occlumency: to feel nothing. He had thought it nonsense at the time. To feel nothing? An impossibility! But maybe Aunt Bella was right after all – maybe it was better to feel nothing?

"So, Draco, you have a yen for the young Weasley girl? It might become a momentous night in more ways than even I had calculated."

_AND WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ALL ABOUT?_

Voldemort's voice adopted that amused, superior, smug inflection again, "So, are there any other sordid secrets you -"

Bellatrix spoke up. "Has there been any news of the Longbottom Horcrux?"

Voldemort rounded on her with a swirl of his cloak. "You mean the one you _lost!"_

Malfoy had never been so grateful that Voldemort's own overweening arrogance left him so very easy to distract. His sense of superiority was such that he couldn't conceive of anyone seriously trying to deceive or deflect him.

Bella cowered under Voldemort's tone, but her objective had been achieved: she had protected Draco. She had drawn attention away from him. She had exposed herself to certain danger to do it, but she had achieved it. She was a Black before she was ever a Death Eater.

"That Horcrux has disappeared," mused Voldemort bitterly. "My sources at the Ministry tell me that the Ministry does not have it – if they'd had it, I would have it now." He considered. "But there is a way to trace it. After all, the two who hid it are still alive." He grew calculating. "Their minds are wrecked," he flicked a glance at Bellatrix, "no thanks to _you_, Bellatrix -" her head dropped "- but they still have the memories and there are ways with memories … Mothers will make extraordinary sacrifices for their children: suffering, pain, even death. Threaten their child sufficiently and they will _tell any secret_." He skewered Bella with a look, "Instead of torturing the Longbottoms, Bella, you should simply have Crucio'd their infant brat in front of them – his mother would have told you anything within seconds. You were at their home, he should have been there."

"I - I – I couldn't find Neville Longbottom! I tortured them – I tortured. For hours. They screamed and screamed. I – but I had to keep going! I did it for _you,_ My Lord!"

Bella sounded half sobbing at that, half-sobbing and half-crazed.

Malfoy knew she wasn't exactly normal, not quite mentally intact you might say, but he found himself suddenly wondering _when_ she had gone crazy. In Azkaban, or … before? Had she been half-crazed going in? Was that why she had survived there, when so many others had not? The Dementors hadn't been able to drive her mad, because she'd been mad to start with?

"Well, Bellatrix, you know where the Longbottoms are and you can acquire their son. Possibly torturing Neville Longbottom in front of his mother might yet jolt something out of her addled brain."

_What the - ?_

Malfoy allowed himself the luxury of closing his eyes – just once – before opening them again and staring straight ahead.

This whole thing had gone way beyond any possible definition of 'acceptable'.

Because now they had plans to torture that lummox, Longbottom? And tortured in front of his mum? He was a plonker, but the very idea was –

And hell, but that meant he might have to blow the cover on one of his helpers now. Somehow contrive to expose her without having the reveal traced back to him. Because if they wanted Longbottom then she could just walk into Hogwarts and simply walk him out again! He'd trust her! She wouldn't even need any spells!

It was all the most frightful mess. He still had Mother to care for. He still had to protect himself. Father was still in jail. Aunt Bella was for him – he knew that – but she was so crazy, was she even reliable? Who knew what she'd do? At what point would she stamp her mark? Professor Snape was coolly sane – he was sure of it – but he despised Father and could yet be a Death Eater and might still betray him with a word. Ginny Weasley was now in the mix. In bringing the scroll into it, he had endangered the frustrating, bushy-haired, clever-clogs Granger – filthy little _mouse _that she was. They were going after Longbottom …

He needed leverage.

He needed something to hold over Voldemort. But Potter had the only live Horcrux available right now. Well, that and that bloody box which, although Voldemort was planning to Horcrux it by killing Potter, wasn't yet a Horcrux, so it was less dangerous if …

He could get the box. That was the best bet. It wasn't a Horcrux but that was a good thing because if it all went to hell, Voldemort wouldn't get his hands on an actual Horcrux.

But to get that box, he'd have to trade. And what did he have to trade with that Potter wanted? What did he have … _apart from information?_

_NOTE: Presuming anyone's actually reading this and I'm not just shooting an arrow out into the void ... I think this is actually my favourite chapter. I love the way we see inside Draco's head and see all the immaturity, name-calling, selfishness and deviousness and yet also his cleverness, and the fact that in his own way, he is brave._

_Draco may not love himself, but I love Draco! (I like him a lot more than I like Harry!)_

_Oh, and from now on in, it starts getting mean. Before this story is done, there will be character deaths._


	25. Chapter 25

Title: (Chapter 25)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 

**Chapter 25**

"You never told me about McLaggan!" Ron hissed. "About how you knew Hermione had potioned him -"

"I hadn't known about that bit for all that long!"

"– and about how you knew that she'd Confundused him to get me on the Quidditch team. And don't tell me you hadn't known about that 'all that long', because you'd known about it all bloody year!" Ron kicked a can out of his way. "_And_ you never told me about Malfoy, either!"

"That was for – his life was -" How was this fair? Because Ron had kept secrets from him and - "Well you didn't tell me about Hedwig!_"_ Harry muttered virulently.

They trudged up the high street, furtively scurrying though Hogsmeade at the dead of night –

_And could I kindly come up with something less ominous-sounding than 'dead of night', please?_

Harry could have kicked himselfbecause he wasscurrying though Hogsmeade 'at the dead of night' to meet up with, of all people, Draco Malfoy!

Ron had practically imploded when Harry had out his plan to him: that the one person they knew who had access to information on the Longbottom/Bellatrix Black Horcrux, was Draco Malfoy. That if Malfoy didn't know directly, he could find out easily enough by asking Bellatrix Black. All they had to do, was ask Malfoy. Ask Malfoy and then swallow their pride, hold their noses and … _bargain_.

"And now we're on our way to meet _Malfoy_?" Ron yelped. "Junior Death Eater Of The Year? We sneak out of Hogwarts with that box thingie, and we haven't even told anyone what we're up to? He could be bringing anyone. He could be bringing back-up. We could be walking right into a trap!"

"Well it's just the same for him, isn't it?" Harry snapped. "He knows that he could be walking into a trap too! And we can't tell anyone because they'd insist on coming along, Malfoy would spot them, and then it's the end of the deal before we've found out what we need to know!"

"We can be trusted to bring back-up that won't nab Malfoy because _we're_ _honest. _We know _we_ won't cheat. We don't know that he won't!"

"He _won't_ bring anyone! He needs to trade with us the same way that we need to trade with him, because he's got to have something he can use to bargain for his mum. He can't risk the trade turning sour by bringing someone. And anyway, he _can't _bring the Death Eaters. The whole point is that _Malfoy_ gets something he can barter with – not that the Death Eaters do! The whole point is that _he_ has something to then trade with _them_. If he brings them with him and they get the box directly, then they won't need him, will they? I've told you – _Malfoy isn't stupid!"_

"No – he's just a selfish, sly, Slytherin git who'd sell you for six knuts and -"

"Oh, for God's sake! We need to know what Neville's Horcrux was and we've only got two ways to do it: send Neville insane or get mixed up with Malfoy. So pick one!"

At Harry's challenge, there followed an abrupt, grim, bad-tempered silence from both boys.

Harry's challenge of 'pick one' was rhetorical though: Ron had already made his decision to get his hands dirty in dealing with Malfoy, because they wouldn't be marching up Hogsmeade High Street right now if he hadn't.

"And bloody typical of my sister," spat Ron, his arcing ill-temper earthing on Ginny. "She's a right little Drama Queen! She's not happy until she's turned life into a soap-opera with her in the starring role! I wouldn't be surprised if she was still creeping about at Hogsmeade – needlessly shivering in a doorway with only a Pygmy Puff for company, playing at feeling sorry for herself and waiting for someone to 'rescue' her! Amazed if she hasn't gone the whole hog and contrived to 'lose' her shoes so she can make-believe she'd some little match-girl figure, all abandoned and alone and frozen." He gave a coarse laugh but it cracked and he snorted with disgust. "For God's sake, she causes a load of trouble, gets caught out, but then because _she_ doesn't like being laughed at, she runs away? _Typical!"_

It turned out that although Remus had checked that Ginny was on-site, Colin Creevey had subsequently helped Ginny sneak off the grounds since, but she had made him promise not to tell a teacher. Instead, Colin had eventually told Neville who had immediately reported to their Head of House: Remus. Colin had apparently thought that she was going to the station to take the train to London.

Evidently Ginny had been in a fearsome temper when she'd left. Romilda Vane had been shouting at her in a stand-up row in the common room, calling her a selfish, sneaky little coward. After she'd gone, most of Romilda Vane's things had been found ripped asunder in her locked trunk. Neville said that everyone was blaming Ginny for Romilda's stuff, but Neville didn't see how she could have done it, not unless she'd suddenly become an expert locksmith!

Evidently, Ginny had taken Arnold with her – Pygmy Puff owners never liked being parted from their pets.

With Ginny now known to be missing, a quick head-count had been taken and Professor Trelawney had been found to be gone too.

Harry had recollected the two people they had seen getting on the train.

Trelawney had been disgraced with the kettle-potion reveal and had crept out of the school. Ginny Weasley been messing about with potions, gotten caught, and then had stormed off in a huff. Both had chosen to run rather than face the consequences of their actions.

Remus had spoken to Colin and issued firm instructions for him not to tell anyone about Ginny – but knowing Colin, it would be all over the school already, at the very least.

Remus had immediately Floo'd The Burrow with the news about Ginny. Harry and Ron had kept out of sight as the Ministry was monitoring the floos, and they hadn't wanted Molly spotting them and shouting her head off. When she'd heard about Ginny, Molly had been shocked and fearful, and as a consequence, angry and exasperated … '_Running away from school – the silly girl! Doesn't she know the danger? … I'll have to go get her from Kings Cross! … Floo-travel at this time of night … Arthur not here, none of the boys here but at least Tanit has just arrived on a surprise visit – she'll help me …' _

Tanit? Harry had wondered who Molly meant until he remembered it was George's girlfriend: the one with the Pygmy Puff connection.

'… _Tanit is such a useful young woman!_ _Not like my own children! Seven of them and not a one you can count on! Ginny just a trial, Ron gallivanting off after Harry – not thinking of me!'_

Remus had brought the conversation to a hasty end at that.

As well as everything else, as they hurtled up the high street, Ron was now smarting at what his mother had said.

They passed Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes – the Hogsmeade branch – and peered into the doorway: the most likely place for Ginny Weasley if she were still skulking about Hogsmeade.

She was not there.

Hopefully she was being picked up safely at Kings Cross right now.

Harry had finally dared use the mirror and had 'phoned' Malfoy to ask if he could swap the box for information on the Longbottom Horcrux: the Horcrux Bellatrix had tortured Neville's parents for. He had simply explained the situation and told Malfoy straight out what was at stake: Neville's sanity. Harry had feared a great deal of sneering and difficulty, but after a short, sharp silence upon hearing about Neville's situation, Malfoy had acceded surprisingly quickly. He had even suggested a suitable meeting-place: the small, stone, lake-side, Norman church at Hogsmeade.

Harry had wondered if they could all get there secretly.

'_Maybe,'_ Ron had hissed, jostling Harry aside to glare into the mirror at Malfoy, '_if Smellfoy doesn't attract_ _attention by being such a smarmy git.'_

'_Maybe,' _Malfoy had sniffed_, ' if Weasley doesn't attract_ _attention by being so very ugly.' _

As a security measure, Harry and Ron only had the box with them; the cup was secure where Remus had locked it in his office safe but the two boys had gotten the box out of Remus' office and hidden it in Harry's knap-sack before they'd left for their rendezvous.

Scurrying up the street with Ron still ranting, Harry voiced a hesitant thought, "Look, I know it sounds weird … but I think Malfoy wants to come over. I think he wants to join us – he just needs an _excuse_ to do it."

Ron jolted to a halt. "_Him?_ Have you lost your gobstones? He's a blackmailer _and_ a briber!"

Sadly, true.

During the mirror conversation, Harry had wondered if they could get into the church and Malfoy had shot him what was becoming his customary look of intellectual disgust._ 'Of course we can, Potter. When _you_ want something, you have highly-wrought plans involving hairs-breadth escapes, daring-do and lashings of noble courage, but we Malfoys -' _

Harry had been forced to physically restrain Ron from punching Malfoy's smirking face in the glass.

'– _just bribe someone.' _

Ron had choked,_ 'You bribed -? But it's a church!'_

'_So?' _Malfoy had managed to give a perfectly eloquent shrug even within the confines of a four-inch mirror frame. '_In fifth-form,_ _I bribed the Church Warden into letting me set up my own private password, so I could go there whenever I wanted a bit of peace and quiet.'_

'_Yeah – you'd pick a church for that,' _Ron had snorted, _' it'd be the last place anyone would ever look for you!'_

'_What's the matter, Weasley? Disappointed that I can cross the threshold of a church without being struck by lightning?' _Malfoy had then addressed Harry,_ 'I highly doubt the warden has told anyone – he hardly could, could he? I thoroughly expect the password is still operating. You see, everyone has their price, Potter, even God it seems.__ Your Super-Speshull Magic Super-Power might be a scar, but fortunately for us all, mine's Money.__ Oh - and if you get to the church before me, do _not_ start on the Communion Wine, because if you get drunk and start hanging off my neck and slurring that you love me, I'm decapitating you.'_

'_Bribing your way into a church? Typical bloody Malfoy!" _Ron had seethed._ 'Your whole family's warped. A church actually would be one of the places someone thought to look for you: to find you inside with a can of Ignatius Incendry's Kwiklite Fluid and a handful of matches – preparing to burn the place out! With your dad telling you to hurry up, so he can get along to the Death Eater Ball and kick some puppies!'_

Malfoy had grown cold, even through the medium of the mirror,_ 'Don't ever talk about my father like that again!'_

They now skirted along a short section of lake shore, the church in sight. Every fifty yards the Ministry had hammered in posts bearing the printed notice: No Swimming.

"Tossers!" spat Ron.

Harry wasn't sure who Ron was fuming about: the Ministry, the Malfoys, or just everyone.

Now, as he approached the church with Ron storming along beside him in a blistering temper at the world and everything in it, Harry did feel a shiver of doubt at the whole thing: the church seemed empty, unlit and soundless. Was Malfoy even there? He looked about him. Had he somehow, after all … _betrayed_ them?

Furious, Ron jabbed his wand on the snout of a stone gargoyle and bit out Malfoy's password: _Sarcasticus Rex._

"_Sarcasticus,"_ Ron snarled, "– God, what a _wanker!"_

Ron then stumbled to a halt when the locked door silently opened and allowed them access … into a candle-lit church with gentle music magically sounding from the organ.

Malfoy had charmed the outside with an _Obscurius_ glamour and a Silencing Charm, neither the light nor the melody could be detected from without – there it simply seemed to be dark.

Both Harry and Ron edged into the church and there was a gap of some seconds before the door swung shut behind them, having half jammed on the uneven floor. They peered about in the dark, wands gripped at the ready, still half-expecting some underhanded move on Malfoy's part.

The organ played by magic, the keys and stops shifting and depressing but without the touch of human hand: it was a very eerie sight. The music was something classical, so of course neither Harry nor Ron had a hope of identifying it.

Malfoy shifted, sitting quite alone, pale head turning to glance indolently over his shoulder, "It's Bach – you cultureless morons."

Typical of Malfoy: why bother with 'hello' when you could fling an insult?

Harry saw that Malfoy was sitting in a pew, if you could describe it as 'sitting'. Long, narrow legs flung out before him and crossed at the ankles, shoulders hunched, hands in pockets, sharply angled chin on chest: it was more like lying down.

Malfoy was aping a relaxed posture – _posing_, Harry labeled it – but he was exuding a resentment-filled tension which gave his true feelings away.

He was probably still smarting at Ron's earlier crack about his father.

Malfoy had always been overly sensitive about his dad. Harry had always thought that was a bit un-natural: no-on else banged on about how their dad cared for them – _my father, my father_ – because no-one else ever questioned the possibility within themselves that their father didn't. With everyone else it was simply a given that they had their dad's support – so what was going on with Malfoy?

The nearby moon-lit lake reflected through a window and Malfoy was caught in the rippling, marine light, his skin momentarily gleaming with the luminous clarity of an ice-carving. Ice: an element for extremes. Fragile, brittle, sharp but easily shattered, nature's version of a piece of high-tensile, surgical steel. Harry wondered, could you make a scalpel from ice? The element of water melded into a cutting edge, into a weapon? Ice. Something which unyieldingly took a lot of pressure until, suddenly, it fractured.

The sharpest edges always shattered the easiest. An ice-blade, if shattered, might cut the wielder's hand to ribbons.

Harry tripped himself up by wondering just how differently things might have gone if he'd taken Draco Malfoy's hand on the train into Hogwarts in his first-year. Not dropped Ron, not become Draco Malfoy's best mate, but just … not made an enemy of him? Without really calculating it, Harry knew that over the years he, Harry, could have been the amalgam that welded Ron, Hermione and Malfoy into a team with him.

With Harry's Gryffindor valour, Ron's almost Hufflepuff loyalty, Hermione's Ravenclaw-class academic mind and Malfoy's Slytherin shrewdness: banded together they would have been unopposable.

With Malfoy on board, he wouldn't have been in quite this same mess now. In a mess, sure, probably, but not this exact same one. Nevermind any possible differences it might have made to Malfoy's actions over Hogwarts and the Death Eaters, Harry would still have had Hermione, because with Malfoy on board, she wouldn't have felt compelled to potion him. Unlike Ron, who followed him, and Hermione who had not known how to deal with him when logic had failed her, when it had come to the raid on the Department of Mysteries, Draco Malfoy would have simply hexed sense into him.

He, Harry, wouldn't have ended up in the Department of Mysteries at all, he would have been too busy being Stupefied and tied to a chair as an unimpressed and unintimidated Draco Malfoy forced him to slow down long enough to give someone time to check.

Well, it was too late now.

Besides, it wouldn't have happened anyway. It couldn't have done. It was a fantasy. Because Draco Malfoy could never have been his friend to that extent, because it would have meant choosing him or anyone else over his father. And that was never going to happen, right?

Malfoy tugged off one black glove with his sharp, white teeth, baring a single pale hand. All the better to hold his wand – just in case. As he did so, his fingers casually flashed in that glimmering low light: glassy nails.

In the golden, warm, flickering light of the church, Malfoy seemed a single source of moonlit pallor: silver, grey, white. Uncomfortably, it struck Harry for the first time that Malfoy occupied a different part of the colour spectrum to other human beings.

Split off from other people.

Oddly separate.

Silvery hair. Pale, winged eyebrows. Narrow, symmetrical, graven. He might have been something carved up on the church wall instead of an actual person.

If Harry hadn't known from six years experience that in large part Malfoy was an annoying, arm-waving, flailing, attention-seeking, whining exhibitionist, he might have been quite unsettled by him right then.

"Quit gawping, Potter. You're coming across as totally gay."

Harry started. He had been skulking in the gloom by the doorway and now, disagreeably, reflected that Malfoy seemed to have no problem seeing in the dark even without the Hand.

Malfoy stood up, unbending his limbs like an anglepoise lamp straightening out. Black shoes, black gloves, black scarf, silky black polo-neck, black cloak – and underneath the cloak a rather nice black business suit, probably one of his 'Scrimgeour' ones. Everything no doubt impregnated with anti-spell charms.

Apart from the bared hand holding the wand, not an inch of skin touched anything.

Wizards duel, Potter – no touching … 

Tall and narrow. Silver-white hair. Marble-pale skin and faintly gleaming eyes. With his white colouring and in his black clothes, he was like a silver-topped Edwardian gentleman's cane. Useful, decorative, pretty even, but potentially dangerous – because some of them concealed swords.

You didn't know either way until the time came.

Malfoy glanced down at himself, brushing off imaginary dust. "Thought you might appreciate the colour-scheme. It's a well-known fact that Gryffindors can't register on the grey scale, they can only see in black and white."

Ron kicked off.

"Shut your gob, Smellfoy, and while you're at it, prove you're you."

Malfoy shrugged. "Okay: proof? Try this: you think your sister would bone anyone for six knuts." He smiled with mock-sweetness, head on one side. "What a wonderfully kind brother you are."

Ron seethed.

Malfoy then flicked a scything look at Harry. "You want proof I'm me, Scarhead?" He looked Harry up and down with utter distaste, "Fine: you're a jumped-up, short-arsed, speccy-faced, virgin-pantsed little berk with a superiority complex a mile -"

Harry cut Malfoy off wearily, "It's you."

"Of course it's me. Who'd want to pretend to be me? I've got three life sentences in Azkaban hanging over my head. If I had any choice, right now even _I_ wouldn't be me."

"Oh, just shut up and stop showing off, Malfoy," Ron spat.

"You shut up, Weasel."

"'Shut up'? Is that the best you've got, Smellfoy?"

"No, but why waste the good stuff on you?"

Harry had that sinking feeling he got when Ron and Malfoy went at it, he interrupted.

"Why did you come here?"

Malfoy gave an unconcerned shrug. "I could get us in. And as Weasel-face so helpfully pointed out: it's one of the last places anyone would ever think of to look for me. Plus, it's hallowed ground: no-one can get off any naughty spells inside the walls of the church. Sadly, that means I can't hex you six ways till Sunday, but it also means you can't do the same to me. Not that you'd succeed, but you might _try."_

"_Wouldn't succeed?"_ Ron was practically frothing already. "We could take you, no problem!"

"Sure, I must remember to contact Gringotts security and let them know that it was an _accident _that I smashed you senseless in the vaults."

Ron looked as though he was about to implode.

"You - you're such a pansy-knickers - such a -" he flailed for a crushing retort, "- _a girl _could punch you out! In fact, one did – in our third-year! Hermione _punched_ you!"

"_Punched - ?_" Malfoy heated up at that particular insult. "Stop re-writing history, Weasel-breath. Granger did not _punch_ me, she _slapped_ me! Next you'll be saying that I ran away sniveling, when the truth is I _walked_ away having not hit her back!"

"I _meant_," interjected Harry pointedly, trying to deflect both Ron and now Malfoy, "why did you come here in _fifth-form_? Why did you pick a church?"

Malfoy jammed to a halt, as though he'd stubbed his toe on something unexpected.

"Well. No reason. Come to a church if I like, can't I? Nice quiet place to think. That's all. Dealing with Umbitch'd drive anyone to drink and Communion Wine's as good as any." He shrugged. "Not to mention the extra thrill you get from knowing you're nicking it off God – makes up for the fact that it isn't exactly top-notch stuff."

"Don't start gobbing off, Smellfoy. You're in God's house."

"Really?" Malfoy looked up and about him. "Don't think much of the décor."

Ron glared at him.

"Stop trying to Imperius me, Weasley, you'll just give yourself a nosebleed."

"Oh shut up, you prat."

"Get bent. Or in your case, get laid - finally."

Ron went bright red and Malfoy laughed. "One thing that makes me crow is that if all this goes bunk, you and Potter will die virgins!"

"How did you get out of the bank, Malfoy?" Harry dragged it back to a salient point. "One of your 'better people' help you out, did they? And why was that dragon chasing you in particular?"

Malfoy abruptly shut up, giving Harry an angry look. "Let's get onto the proper topic, shall we? What this meeting is all about? I've got the information, have you got the thing?"

Harry knew that Malfoy had changed the subject, but let it go. What mattered now was the Horcrux information. Harry nodded, "So come on then, what's the Longbottom Horcrux?"

"No chance. You first. Give me the object and then I'll talk."

"Get lost. You first." That was Ron. "We don't even know that you know anyway!"

"I do!" Malfoy momentarily sounded like an injured schoolboy being called out on his conker-collection. "I asked Aunt Bellatrix, straight after talking to you two earlier." He recovered his tone, "One of the benefits of keeping in with rum company – you learn such interesting things."

"Well, if you know about the Longbottom Horcrux, go on then, what is it?"

Malfoy went silent, arms folded.

It was clearly a stand off, with neither side having enough trust to give up their leverage first.

"You go first," flashed Ron, "because we know that we'll deal honestly even after we've got what we want. That's the difference between you and us: we're Gryffindors, we're trustworthy and decent!"

"T_rustworthy and - ?" _Malfoy began to heat up again. "You lot? You lie to teachers. You cheek Professors. You cheat and steal."

"We're not slimy Slytherins!"

Malfoy drew an indignant breath. "_Slimy -?_ When Moody-Crouch-whoever, was trying to kill me by bouncing me about the Great Hall, you lot just _laughed! _He was trying to _kill _me and you thought it was funny!" He glared at Harry and flung an accusatory arm in the direction of Ron, "Weasel-gob practically had an orgasm just watching! No wonder I wasn't arsed about Umbridge returning the favour to you lot the year after!"

"I've already told you," snapped Harry, "Moody wasn't Moody, he was Crouch. It was Crouch's doing and he was a Death Eater!"

"So what? What about that oaf, Hagrid? He's all-Gryffindor and all-bully!"

"He is not!"

"He is! He's a bully and a moron in one! He's never liked me because I'm a Slytherin and a Malfoy. Calling me 'this idiot', saying I ask 'stupid questions'. Me? What about him? He's _thick!_ He only ever had a position at Hogwarts because Dumbledore felt sorry for him! He _threatened_ me in lessons! He threatened to 'take a leaf out of Moody's book' and beat me up! That was sheer bullying!"

"You just despise him because he's half-giant!"

"That's not true! I was never rude to Madame Maxime, and she's half giant. I don't despise that oaf Hagrid for being half-giant, I despise him for being all-idiot. You try being polite to someone who despises you because of who your father was!"

"Oh for – well, you can talk! Spell 'Snape', anyone?" 

For a moment there was a crunching silence, but only for a moment as Malfoy – true to form - collected himself after a setback, got back up on his feet and kept on coming.

Redoubling his efforts. Not unlike Hermione.

"Only people as self-regarding as Gryffindors would be so blinkered about themselves. You've got to be so bloody wonderful, haven't you? The best of the best – better than all the rest! And to prove you're so wonderful, everyone else has to be shown to be rubbish – even when they're not! You don't give anyone a chance to show what they can do because you don't want them to be seen as okay. Even if everyone else isn't crap, they've got to look it so you can look great!" His voice rose, there was almost a squeak of outrage in it now. "You think I can't be decent? Well how about this: the Death Eaters are planning to grab Longbottom and his parents so they can torture him in front of his mum and maybe jolt some information out of her about that missing Horcrux! And if you think he's safe in Hogwarts – well he isn't! Trust no-one with him, Potter! Only the teachers – okay? Not the Aurors! And the reason I didn't tell you that in the bank-vault was because I only found out afterward! There, see? I _can_ do it! But you're refusing to go first – making me tell you before you keep your end of the deal so you can say I only told you because I had to in order to get what I wanted!_ Now give me that sodding box and then I'll tell!"_

There was a ruffling noise and a voice came from the other end of the nave, near the door. "Oh for heaven's sake just give him whatever he wants so we can make the trade!"

Harry and Ron started. Malfoy whirled in a wild arc, covering the area with his wand.

Harry and Ron's jaws dropped.

Malfoy gathered himself and sneered in a display of faux-bravado, "Well if it isn't Anagram Girl: Raging Hormones."

"_Anagram -?_ Malfoy, for 'Hermione Granger' to equal 'Raging Hormones', I'd need an extra S, an extra O, and to get rid of an R and two Es! Let's not descend into outright foolishness, shall we? Let's _try_ to remain dabbling at the margins of mere silliness!"

Hermione Granger was back.

NOTE: the "Fine: you're a jumped-up, short-arsed, speccy-faced, virgin-pantsed little berk with a superiority complex a mile -" Harry cut Malfoy off wearily, "It's you." – joke was based on something from 'Angel', I think.


	26. Chapter 26

Title: (Chapter 26)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 

**Chapter 26**

As they stood in the church, Malfoy smirked. "Clearly the grand-daughter of a Bletchley Park code-breaker. I _knew_ you wouldn't stay hidden for too much longer."

Hermione started and Harry realised she did not know that Malfoy had been at the wedding-reception in disguise and so had heard of 'Bletchley Park'.

Ron, astonished at the sight of Hermione, could only manage a rusty croak but even so Harry interjected to cut him off in case he was going to throw one about the love-potioning and Confundusing. "Where the -" he lurched back to Hermione, _"where the hell have you been?"_

Asking the question, he suddenly realised how angry he felt: angry from having been under the continual, subliminal worry at her unexplained disappearance.

It had only been a few days, but it had felt like forever.

"I've been at Hogwarts," she replied, promptly.

"Not just now! I mean – where since you got expel – er … since you got … _since you left school!"_

Hermione's eyes flashed, angry at Harry's tone, but before she could speak -

"She just told you, idiot." That was Malfoy. "Hogwarts. Be sensible. If she wasn't at home and she wasn't with the Death Eaters and she wasn't with your Order and it was never confirmed that she took a place at Durmstrang – then where else was there?" He turned to Hermione, raising an eyebrow and curling a lip, "Grubbing around in the library were you, like a good, inky-fingered little swot?"

Hermione ignored his question and sniffed. "Thank you for explaining my whereabouts, Malfoy, but I think you'll find I _can_ speak for myself."

"After six years of putting up with you bouncing up and down on the balls of your feet and waving your hand in the air, I know you can speak for yourself. The point is, _can you ever shut up?"_

Hermione bristled and turned to Harry, "I was lurking, Concealed, outside Professor Lupin's office door when the Professors were talking to you. I followed Professor McGonagall. I couldn't see you, but I could hear you. I knew perfectly well you were going to sneak off on some hare-brained scheme or other over Neville, so I followed you."

"You were - ? God, is that castle a sieve when it comes to security?" Harry was aghast. "Probably you and everyone's uncle were secretly out in that corridor!"

"Hermione …? _It's you_ …?" Ron was finally managing to croak out words.

"Oh try to keep up, Weasel," Malfoy was exasperated, "I think we've established that it's her." He turned to Hermione, "How did you get away with hiding at Hogwarts? Or was McGonagall in the know?"

Hermione opened her mouth, became annoyed, and then closed it. "Well I'm not telling you!"

"So she was in the know – otherwise you wouldn't mind telling me."

"Oh - !" Hermione gave an exasperated little cry. "Professor McGonagall knew. She never let me leave the grounds, it wasn't safe. I stayed in the Room of Requirement," she flicked a dismissive look at both Harry and Ron, "– _reading._" She then flicked a particularly hard look, "Professor McGonagall and the Head of Durmstrang cooked up that whole 'Durmstrang' diversion to fool the Ministry." She raised her arm and examined the seemingly roughly-hewn stick in her hand, "I did go there though, I secretly Floo'd to Budapest in the company of Madame Pince – a vampire -"

"Wha -?"

"Oh stop wasting the world's oxygen supply on stupid questions, Weasel-smell. Of course Pince was a vampire!" That was Malfoy. "Never went out in the sun? Always sallow? Scrawny, as though her body was continually using up more energy than it could take in as food? Always got that pinched, hungry look about her? Didn't anyone even consider the possibility, even after they'd seen that Sanguini character, and he looked just the same?"

Hermione continued, shooting sharp looks at both Ron and Malfoy.

"- at Durmstrang I read the Great Secret Books -"

"Secret no longer, of course, because you've just told us about them," droned Malfoy.

"- and _then _Viktor arranged for me to be fitted for a new Gregorovich wand!"

At the mention of Viktor, Harry flung a look at Ron who stood there, blinking dumbly at Hermione, looking hurt.

Harry sort of knew how Ron felt. She'd been at Hogwarts, safe? But she and McGonagall hadn't told them anything? They'd been worried about her. And now she just turns up and just starts bossing them about again?

Hermione flicked Ron a glance that was simultaneously defensive, cross, distrustful and somehow guilt-ridden.

The part of Harry that wasn't angry recollected that the last time they had met, a furious row had been cut off practically in mid-shout. He knew now that he had partly hoped that when they, all three, met again it would all be forgotten – but maybe it hadn't been, by any of them?

"Yes," she said, mouth small and determined, chin in the air, "Madame Pince is a Vampire and when I went out there, I took the opportunity to gain access to the Vampire arcana in the Great Repository at Durmstrang - I became a neophyte to the Brethren."

Neither Harry nor Ron knew what she meant, but Malfoy started.

"I haven't spent my time moping about and feeling sorry for myself, you know," she announced, school-marmishly. "To gain access to the society of Vampires, I had to undergo the Exsanguination of Karsh, in which I lost half my blood supply, I undertook the Challenge of Gore, in which I had to battle a blood-demon, I suffered the Trials of Haemoglobus in which I fought -"

"Oh, do get _on_ with it woman."

Hermione glared at Malfoy for a second and then went back to pronouncing. "I think that you will find that I am now a Novitiate in the Order of the Brethren of the Blood – one of those dedicated to guarding the Dark Road and the Devil's Door!"

Ron stared, mouth dropping open. Hermione shot him a look which was half-angry and half shame-faced, "Well it was very useful!" she snapped, as though she felt she had to justify herself. "I now know an awful lot about -"

Harry caught up.

"What?" he screeched. "You mean you're now part-Vampire?"

"Oh, for heaven sakes, of course not. But – well - I mean, in some ways, I'm apart now." She sounded slightly sad, "In a way, the dark is now my home."

"Oh, stop showing off," sneered Malfoy.

Hermione couldn't quite suppress an eye-roll, even whilst keeping half an angry eye on Ron.

"But – now we're on it - how _do_ Vampires see in the dark?" Malfoy persisted, curious despite himself.

Hermione looked at him as though weighing up if it were some kind of trick-question, and then decided to answer anyway. "It's infra-red," she sniffed, "they see by heat-signature."

"Heat _what?"_

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Malfoy! I don't know, mention Muggle technology to any wizard …" She forcibly took a calming breath, "Your 'heat-signature', Malfoy. You know, glow-in-the-dark? Infra-red?" She closed her eyes, exasperated. "I know I'm going to regret this next bit, but … you're _'hot'_ Malfoy." Her voice rose in a spiral of mild hysteria. "And if you've got anything whatsoever of a smutty nature to say about that - !"

Harry cut across her, feeling somehow hurt, angry and aggrieved all in one. "Look, I know you feel guilty -"

Hermione rounded on him, hands on hips.

"_GUILTY ABOUT WHAT?"_

Harry almost jumped.

Because at the back of his mind he had thought she was going to go for Ron, but in the end she had struck at the first person she saw as making a move to strike at her.

Having now started, she ran on as though too panicked to stop.

"Don't try to tell me what to think or do or feel, Harry! Because when it comes to thinking, you've not had the practice – _you've been too busy leaving it all to me!"_ Her voice was high. "And I'm not going to apologise for what I did!" – Harry realised she meant potioning him – "because I'm not going to apologise for trying to save us all!"

None of them had gotten over that last unfinished row after all.

Harry's words leapt out, "Why didn't you just turn around and _say_ how you felt!"

"Because you weren't listening to me! You were too busy yelling at me!"

"Because if you'd just _spoken_ to me -!"

"Punch or slap?" queried Malfoy.

"_Spoken to you?"_ screeched Hermione, "I tried nothing else for most of the year and – _punch or slap?_ Malfoy, what on earth are you blathering on about? If that's some strange, perverted game you play with that cow Parkinson, I'm going to -"

"But no, you couldn't be bothered speaking to me," Harry roared on, "you just decided you knew what was best and -"

"Oh, please, Granger. Perverted game? Your honour's safe with me. With me and anyone else who can read the foot-high letters on the top row of the St. Mungo's eyesight chart. The question was: in our third-year, did you punch me or slap me?"

"Oh for God's sake - _you punched him!"_ exploded Harry.

"I did not! I _slapped_ him!" she screeched.

Malfoy's grin was pure 'I told you so' and he leant back against a wall, content to fold his arms and watch the 'trio' spat it out.

"Do not try to tell me what happened!" Hermione was rounding on Harry. "Do not tell me to re-write History just to suit you! I was there, it was my hand, I should know! I _slapped_ him! Punched him? That nonsense only happens in Muggle Movies!"

"And you - I _wasn't _yelling at you all year!" yelled Harry.

"You _were _yelling at me!"

"But it was the drugs!"

"So I'm responsible for that too now, am I? It's all my fault because my drugs made you angry?"

"No! I mean … I know you were dosing me in fifth-form -"

"_What?"_ yelped Ron.

Malfoy howled with laughter.

"– I know you were using stuff like Draught of Peace and Elixir of Euphoria, stuff like that -"

"Are you _kidding_ me?" Ron yelped at Harry. "How much stuff have you been hiding from me?"

"– but it was Trelawney!" continued Harry. "She was dosing up her classes with Befuddlement Potion -"

Malfoy cackled with a sudden, sharp, glee.

" – and she's just been sacked for it! If you hadn't been so busy hiding in the Room of Requirement, you'd know that! Befuddlement Potion 'inflames the braine' – no wonder I was up the wall half that year! That stuff makes you rash! _It wasn't my fault! If you'd had more faith in me, then all that dosing you did, it needn't have happened!"_

Hermione's expression shifted.

"It wasn't your - ? _Typical!_ Go on, make excuses!" She choked off a screech to mimic a whiny voice, "'_I was drugged! It was Trelawney's fault. Dragging us all to the DoM and nearly getting us all killed had nothing to do with me!' _So it's my fault for not waiting long enough before acting to distract you with a girlfriend, was it? My fault that I wasn't prepared to take risks with all our lives, betting them on your bad temper!"

"I was being drugged!" yelled Harry. "My bad temper was because of Trelawney!"

"Because of - ? How! _You were like that before!_ You were in a strop at me before we even got to school that year!"

"Our lives weren't at risk because of my temper!"

"They were! You practically got us all killed at the Ministry!"

Malfoy stirred up off the wall somewhat – he hadn't known that whole part of Hermione's motivations.

"_I NEVER GOT ANYONE KILLED! AND WILL YOU LISTEN TO ME BECAUSE -" _

Hermione took a shocked step back from Harry's roaring: she was blinking now, mouth moving but nothing coming out.

Malfoy got up off the wall.

"Pull yourself together, Potter! If it was all the fault of Trelawney's potion, then how come the whole class wasn't running amok? She was potioning everyone stupid enough to take that idiotic subject, and no-one else flew off the handle! It was all _you!"_

"I -" Harry scrabbled for an explanation. "It was Voldemort! It was the extra pressure on me – he – he was trying to push into my mind!"

"Oh stop making excuses, you little prat!" Malfoy was fully up now. "Why can't you just take responsibility for what you've done? Why can't any of it ever be your fault? Sure, Frizzy-knickers dosed you," he waved an arm in Hermione's direction, "but even I saw how you treated her all fifth-year. Couldn't miss it. You were yelling your head off half the time." His tone heated, "Lunging into that Ministry like a prat - why don't you just stop blaming everyone else for everything and just _take responsibility!"_

There was a pause.

It was Harry's turn to blink and step back.

But Ron simply stepped forward, his voice trembling with indignation and hurt.

"So, you don't even try to tell us where you are," his voice shook – it was hard to say whether he was going to cry or shout, "you and McGonagall don't tell us anything -"

"How? In case you've forgotten, you were on the run!" Hermione's voice was high and quavering.

"- you run off and worry us sick!" Ron wasn't going to listen. "And that's after having dosed Harry with love potion and then McLaggan with the same -"

Hermione started, she didn't know Ron knew about McLaggan.

"McLaggan?" laughed Malfoy.

"– so you could have some 'cool' boy take you to Slughorn's party -"

"Should've asked me," snorted Malfoy.

"- and no, I _don't_ care that it was supposed to be to get my attention," Ron went on, voice shaking now. "And then Confundusing McLaggan during the Quidditch try-outs, because you didn't think I could get a proper place on the Gryffindor Quidditch team without your 'helping hand' -"

Hermione gasped, horrified.

"- then you just turn up and you're not even going to _apologise?"_ Ron's voice was strained now. "You dosed McLaggan just because it was convenient. You just treated him like cattle. And you had absolutely no belief in me. I was _good_ at Quidditch – I was one of the best goalies at Hogwarts but even _then _you didn't think I was good enough! It was actually the thing I was good at and -"

"I _did_ think you were good enough! I – it was just that -"

"You _Confundused_ McLaggan because you didn't think I could beat him. What's 'good enough' about that!"

"But I only did it because -"

"_Because you never thought I could make it by myself!"_

Hermione closed her mouth.

"Quidditch goalie was the best I had! Do you know how much guts it takes to be a goalie? To choose to stand out there, alone, and be the last line of defense? To know that it's you or no-one? And I was pretty good at it. I was good, but it still turned out to be not good enough for you. You had no faith in me. The best I had still wasn't good enough for you. _I was never going to be good enough for you!"_

Ron was desperately upset. Harry stared at him – he had known it would be awful when Ron found out, but he hadn't realised just how bad it would be, that the whole thing would undermine Ron's entire sense of self.

"Oh, come on, Ron," Harry joshed, nervous. "It was _once_, it -"

"_STOP IT!"_ Ron turned and shouted at him. "_Just stop justifying it! _You knew about that _Confundus_ thing, and _you never told me!"_

"Well you never told me about Hedwig!"

"What about Hed -?"

"She'd _dead!"_ Harry snapped at Hermione.

"And when exactly was I supposed to just 'slip it into the conversation'? _'Want extra ketchup on that next kebab, Harry – oh, and by the way, your owl's dead'?_ When was I supposed to do that? After you'd seen Hermione expelled? After you'd found out about the tragedy of R.A.B.? After you'd seen Snape grubbing about in your mum's grave?"

Hermione's mouth was a perfect, round 'O' at that.

"Look, Ron, I would have told you about that Confundusing stuff but I just didn't feel comfy -"

"You didn't feel comfy? What's that supposed to mean? That you _knew_ she had no faith in me, that you knew she saw me as some faintly exasperating _project_ – but you didn't tell me because _you didn't feel comfy?_ Me and Hermione were supposed to stay together for the sake of your comfort? What were you - scared of how difficult it might be if your friends split up for good? _Do you know how selfish that is?"_

Harry's mouth moved, but no sound came out.

"And don't say, _'it didn't matter'!" _yelled Ron."Just don't! Because it _did_ matter and it _does _matter. And now I'll never even know if I made Quidditch goalie for myself! Not even _that!_ Even that's ruined for me now. She _ruined_ it for me! _And you knew it and you didn't tell me!"_

Ron was flailing about now, so angry his eyes were actually screwed shut. "What was she going to be like in the rest of our lives - once we'd gotten out of school? Was she going to be nagging at me when she wasn't exasperatedly sighing? Treating me like I was just some retarded 'project'?" His eyes flicked open, uncontrollably shouting. "YOU KNEW AND YOU DIDN'T TELL ME!"

Hermione was large-eyed, almost shrinking.

Harry remembered fearing that either Hermione would end up nagging Ron to the point where he was ground down, or out of psychological self-preservation, Ron would get his retaliation in first by exploding. It looked like Ron's choice was: exploding.

Harry did not know what to say.

"Oh, well boo-bloody-hoo," Malfoy's voice held an annoyed tone. "For God's sake," his manner hardened, "my mother is still stuck with You Know Who, the wizarding world is on a cliff edge, the whole world could come toppling down into barbarism – and you're pratting on about what your girlfriend did? Cut it out, Weasel-gob."

"Shut up, Malfoy," ground out Ron, eyes closed and breathing hard, "this is serious. This is emotional," Ron floundered for the term, "emotional - _emotional issues!"_

"Emotional issues? Oh don't be ridiculous. We're teenagers, we don't have 'emotional issues', we throw strops!"

"I'm telling you – it's _serious_."

"Fine. Okay, it's serious. So, come on, then: what colour are her eyes?"

Ron opened his and blinked in surprise.

"No, don't look to _see, _Big-gob. What colour are they? If she's that important to you, if it's all so 'serious', what colour are her eyes?"

"I - I don't have to answer you!"

"Stop ducking and dodging to try and get a look around me, Weasel. What colour?"

There was a long, long silence.

"Er … _brown …?"_

As it turned out, it was the correct answer but clearly a guess: it had taken far too long for Ron to reply and the 'er' did tend to give it away.

At it, Harry felt some weird sense of slippage within him, something abruptly come loose and slide from an artificial height to find its own level, because in truth, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger had just broken up right then. Right then when, after six years, Ron still hadn't been sure about the colour of her eyes.

"So, it's all so 'serious', but you don't even really know the colour of her eyes?" sneered Malfoy, still pressing, as though he hadn't realised that the landslide had already happened. "Weasel, I could tell you the colour of Parkinson's eyes, and I care more about the lint in my pocket than I do about her."

"I don't care about you and your girlfriends!" snapped Ron.

"Oh just drop all the theatrics," spat Malfoy, finally angry, "_you and Granger just don't fancy each other – just admit it!"_

There was a pause.

Harry almost winced, because Ron wasn't going to stand still for that one and –

"_That is complete -!"_

Malfoy cut Ron off, "You only ever used her to do your homework. God – it was like she was your mum. The only time you showed any interest was when she started going out with Krum. Wanted to prove that you were up there with a world-class, sports-star by dating his ex-girlfriend, did you?"

"You lying -!"

"Home truths hurt, Weasel-gob." He turned to Hermione, "And you're not much better. Lurching about after the Weasel, behaving hysterically with those stupid birds – yes, we all heard about it – too stubborn to admit that it wasn't working for you. Not to mention there was probably a bit of fear there about being edged out of 'the trio' by the likes of Lavender Brown!"

He turned back to Ron as Hermione gasped.

"Out of me and you, Weasel, I bet I'm the only one who knows what Granger's undies look like." He slid a knowing, sideways glance at the shocked Hermione, "Grey, holey, and gussets the size of a top-sail."

Hermione let out a squeal.

Harry felt he should mumble some sort of explanation.

"He rooted through your – er … knicker drawer, at The Burrow. He – er… he came to the wedding Polyjuiced-up as Dashwood. He … er -"

"_What?"_ Hermione screeched.

Malfoy kicked on, "You wouldn't have a clue what her scanties look like, Weasel, because you wouldn't dare have a grope: _little boys never look in their mother's purses!"_

Hermione's hand flew to her mouth, horrified. "My drawer? – My list! – Oh my God, my _list!"_

"Too late!" snorted Malfoy. And then slid her a hard look, "And I've had to tell the Death Eaters about it."

"You said you hadn't!" yelped Harry.

"That was _before_, you cretin. Things had to change." He looked hard at Hermione, "I told them it was McGonagall's list."

Hermione gasped.

Malfoy turned back on Harry and Ron, "And, by the way, has either of you even bothered to tell Hormones here to keep her guard up on ex-Death Eater, Slughorn?"

Clearly, from Hermione's even more strangulated gasp, neither had.

"Why do I suspect that's typical?" Malfoy spat. "You go on nagging about how she didn't contact you, about how she didn't behave like a proper doormat of a girlfriend – but no, don't bother telling her about the Killer Death Eater, will you?"

Malfoy sharpened to the topic, glaring at Hermione.

"And do _not_ get all stubborn about how you _luuurve_ the Weasel, _Hormones_, just because it was me who pointed out how stupid the whole thing was!"

Malfoy cleared his throat and surveyed the appalled Ron, the stunned Hermione and the slightly sheepish Harry. "Now! Can we all get past this girlfriend/boyfriend rubbish so that we can get onto what matters?" He imperiously held his hand out to Harry. "I want what I came for."

Harry stared down at Malfoy's hand. It was – they were – oh, what the hell, why not?

He rootled about in his knapsack, feeling for the hefty box.

"Wait!" Ron held up a desperate hand and glared hotly at Malfoy. "Before we swap, _swear_ – swear before God – that this thing isn't some kind of secret Horcrux. _Swear it!"_

Malfoy gave a theatrical sigh, rolled his eyes, lazily held up his right hand as though were being deputised and droned, "I swear before God and all his multitudes of frolicking cherubs that it isn't some kind of Sekrit Horcrux." His gaze sharpened, "Oh for God's sake, Weasel, can we just get on with it now?"

"What?" yelped Ron, "Get on with it? You didn't even take that oath like you meant it!"

"I said it as much as I could mean it! What more do you want?"

"I want you to say it again and say it properly! You're giving your word before God!"

"Whom – in case you hadn't noticed – I'm not too bothered about!"

"Don't tell me you 'don't believe' Malfoy – 'cos you say his name often enough!"

Malfoy made a noise of utter exasperation, "Bloody typical! You really are 'black or white', 'all or nothing', aren't you! You either 'believe' so you must be a good little God-botherer, or you don't and you're a Minion of Satan! What about the rest of us – the one's who think there's probably something out there – but guess what? _We don't care anyway!"_

It was one of the few times Harry had ever seen Malfoy slide into genuine anger.

"I'm not going to go round God-bothering and bleating and genuflecting! Why should I? What's He ever done for me? What's He ever done for anyone! The world's _crap!_ If He was doing his job properly, the world would be a lot better. It would be a nicer place. Horrible people just wouldn't exist. Cruel things just wouldn't happen. Dark Lords with red eyes wouldn't be allowed to hold people's mothers to ransom! I'm not going to waste my life hanging off some deity who might not bother to show! When I need something done, Weasel, I'll do it myself, I won't wait around for God! _I don't care about God!"_

"But it doesn't matter if you don't care about God, Draco, because he cares about you anyway."

Harry reeled about in the direction of the light voice, lurching for his wand even as his hand was half-trapped inside his knap-sack.

In the now-open doorway stood Tonks, Neville and the speaker, Luna - standing there with her long blond hair and her light silvery eyes.


	27. Chapter 27

Title: (Chapter 27)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 

**Chapter 27**

In the church, Harry's heart-beat slowed down from a wild pump even though Ron and Hermione still instinctively had their wands drawn.

"If she says 'wotcher' so much as once," Ron glowered in the direction of Tonks, sounding half-nervous at the unexpected interruption and half-angry at everything in general, "I'm going to shoot her."

Harry saw that Neville had his wand out too, looking anxiously at Malfoy. In contrast, Luna's wand-arm was lowered as she took in Malfoy with a sort of kindly inquisitiveness. Malfoy looked back at her, shifting uncomfortably.

Harry remembered … _I don't hit girls_ …

Tonks looked blank, she had her wand held loosely in one hand but her fingers tightened around something small and golden in the other.

Harry saw Malfoy tense with a sudden sharp anticipation.

Not surprising: Tonks was an Auror, she could arrest him, and inside the wards of the church, could Malfoy even Disapparate?

"What on earth are you doing here?" Harry's voice yelped out of him. He wasn't even sure which of the three he was addressing.

No-one immediately answered. Instead, Neville was still gawping at the sight of Harry Potter and the trio somehow negotiating with Draco Malfoy, whilst Tonks' blank, dazed gaze seemed to have drifted to Malfoy and stopped there.

It was Luna who spoke.

"Tonks found Neville at school when he and I were talking of inviting Theodore to help us search for -"

"Theodore _Nott?"_ screeched Malfoy, as though he'd been personally betrayed.

" – anyway, Tonks just wanted Neville and I to secretly come to Hogsmeade with her, so we took the opportunity. Without Tonks, we weren't sure how to get off the grounds without the teachers noticing, you see."

Harry gawped: Luna and Neville had been planning to search Hogsmeade for Ginny on the off-chance? And Tonks had _let _them? Even _encouraged_ them?

Harry was aghast at the vacant looking Tonks. Had she lost it completely? Sneaking kids from the safety of the school grounds, taking them beyond the wards? Sure, he and Ron had done it for themselves, but that was different! That was -

"Neville has re-started the D.A., you know," nodded Luna, conversationally. "Though I don't suppose you do know, seeing as you've been 'on the run'."

Harry became abruptly aware that Luna was directly addressing him.

He watched as her expression became considering, her pale eyebrows drawing together. "Sounds terribly exciting, being 'on the run'. But I don't suppose it is really, I expect it's rather uncomfortable and somewhat lonely. Not to mention smelly – where on earth would one even find the regular opportunity to at least wash one's socks and underpants?"

At that, despite the pressure of the situation or perhaps because of it, Harry nearly laughed hysterically. She was so tranquil and her thought processes were in their own way so rational but at the same time so – she was so utterly _nuts!_

He was swept by that confusion he regularly felt around Luna: that he didn't know _what _he thought of her! She was irksome and discomforting. She was warm and somehow calming. She believed in God in the same unquestioning way she might believe in the Tooth Fairy – some small part of her forever at six years old!

In confusion he jerked away, lurching into the cover of action.

"Tonks – _what did you think you were doing!"_

But Tonks ignored Harry's angry statement much as she'd ignored Ron's earlier glowering insult about 'wotcher' and looked blankly about and then back to Malfoy. "Draco,"her tones were very dull, "Draco, I thought you were here – my coin …" she moved her left hand disconsolately, and Harry recalled the small, golden thing in it. "I've got Neville … What are you doing here with all these people? They're not supposed to be your friends."

What the -? Tonks was talking to Malfoy like she _knew _him?

At Harry's left hand, Malfoy started jerkily into action as though having rapidly come to some calculation. He half-turned and shot his words out in one long stream.

"Step away from Tonks now Longbottom she's an Imperiused spy for the Death Eaters my Aunt Bellatrix hit her with the Imperius at that Department of Mysteries battle and she's been working for the Death Eaters and Aunty had her chasing after Remus Lupin to get accepted on the inside track of the Order and now Aunty's been charged with getting hold of Longbottom and torturing him and she must have used Tonks do it because who would ever suspect that harmless little lump and -"

"What?" squawked Harry, uncomprehending.

"For the love of – _can't you speak English?"_ screeched Malfoy, fingers flexed and eyes wild.

He had spoken in one long, unpunctuated breath. Shooting his words out in a panic.

"Tonks is Imperiused?" clarified Hermione. "Bellatrix Lestrange shot her? Tonks has been trying to get -" she coughed, "- _pillow-talk_ out of Professor Lupin? And now she's after _Neville?"_

"Got it in one!" screamed Malfoy. _"Give the girl a N.E.W.T.!"_ He turned on Neville, "Get away from that Auror, Longbottom - _you lummox!"_

Neville shifted uncomfortably, but did not move. Instead, Luna placed her hand on his arm and took a step back away from Tonks, drawing Neville with her.

"But that's terrible!" Hermione squealed at Malfoy's revelation.

"I know," gabbled Malfoy. "Can you imagine? Think of the reaction when she comes-to and has to face up to the fact that she's been snogging the tonsils off a Werewolf!"

"Oh, for heaven's -! What I _meant_ was -!"

"Oh, just shoot him," Ron yelled to Tonks, "just shoot the annoying, lying git!"

"We're in church, you idiot!" screamed Malfoy. "No one can shoot anyone." He turned to Tonks, "Step away from Longbottom! I am countermanding your orders!"

Tonks mumbled something inaudible and shuffled toward the door.

Malfoy tried a spell anyway, _"Finito Imperius!"_ but within the church walls, nothing happened.

Harry gawped – Malfoy was firing canceling spells, and he was a wanted criminal but Tonks was just drifting off?

What was she even doing here at all, if it wasn't to catch Malfoy?

"Stop her!" screamed Malfoy, struggling clumsily between some pews in an attempt to reach Tonks.

Ron dodged to stop him. "You're just trying to cause confusion to get away because she's an Auror and she'll catch you!"

"_Catch me?_ Are you kidding? _She's leaving!"_ Malfoy screamed to Harry, "Potter, _STOP HER!"_

Harry hovered uncertainly, Malfoy was wild and shrieking, whereas Tonks was an Auror – but she looked so … _weird._

"Does anyone honestly believe that I just walked into the Weasley's shop, browsed around and bought Peruvian Darkness Powder and that they'd just sell it to me?" Malfoy screamed. "_Tonks bought it!_ Just like she bought the opal necklace for me – morphed up as some old lady. She was the one who palmed the necklace off on Katie Bell!"

_Morphed up as some old lady _… That was what Ron had reported, and the first time Harry had really seen Tonks' in action was when she had morphed into … _an old lady_ …

"Come off it! She wasn't even in the pub!" roared Ron.

"She's a metamorph! _Of course_ she was in the pub! She was morphed-up as someone else!"

Harry jolted: he had always sneakily thought it was odd that the inexperienced Madam Rosmerta could Imperius anyone – as she was supposed to have Imperiused Katie Bell. Certainly not when she was under the power of Imperius herself! And Tonks _had_ been there that day. Untroubled and indifferent, she had been outside the pub when Mud was selling Sirius' things. How blank she looked then … _as blank as she looked now_ …

"Don't you think we'd all get a lot more done if we stopped fighting amongst ourselves long enough to actually _talk?"_ enquired Luna, politely.

Harry flung her an exasperated look and rounded on Malfoy. "You told Dumbledore it was Rosmerta who Imperiused Katie!"

"I didn't tell him – he told me! I just let him think he was right!"

Malfoy was physically struggling with Ron now, even though he was still yelling at Harry.

"That's how the Death Eaters knew Dumbledore wasn't at Hogwarts on the night of the attack: he'd told the Aurors that he was leaving the school – he told Tonks – and she told us! She used the coins to tell us. The Ministry checked Rosmerta for her coin and thought she'd thrown it away – but they couldn't find one because she'd never had one. Even as far back as the start of the school year, Tonks was Imperiused for the Death Eaters. How do you think she even found you on the train that time, when you were covered with an Invisibility Cloak? I _told _her you were there and then she got you because it would draw suspicion if you weren't at school! _It was all Tonks!"_

"I really do think we ought to stop fighting and simply speak to each other."

Harry glared at Luna and then remembered back to the wedding-reception and the two Ministry wizards who had been discussing Rosmerta and saying that she didn't even recall being Imperiused … that it had been 'such a good job' _you'd never have believed it had happened at all_ …

And if it had been Rosmerta then why had Malfoy not known Harry was on the tower-top at the time? He had suspected, sure, but not known it. But Rosmerta had _seen_ he and Dumbledore together, she'd even loaned them her brooms. If Rosmerta had been the leak, then Malfoy would have known that Harry was on the tower-top!

"Shut up, Smellfoy! You're just trying to create confusion!" Ron knocked Malfoy back, sending him sprawling against a pew-end, and in response Malfoy bit him. "Ow!" Ron sucked at his bitten hand, shaking it to take out the sting, "you – you bloody _girl!"_

He physically launched in again on the now wildly struggling Malfoy.

Tonks – mumbling inaudibly to herself - was now opening the heavy old door: it scraped against the stone floor.

She was as blank as that time in the corridor outside the Room of Requirement when he had been tormenting Malfoy by shouting at him through the wall, and Tonks had dawdled along – completely in the wrong part of the castle – and had distracted him until baiting Malfoy had started to feel silly and he had left and …

_Tonks had turned up just when Malfoy had needed her, because Malfoy had called her on the coin._

Tonks lurched suddenly as Hermione shot her.

"Oh!" Luna cried.

Ahead of anyone else – Harry, Ron, Neville, Luna, anyone - Hermione Granger had decided to trust Draco Malfoy.

She had hit Tonks with a Stupefy, practically point-blank - but Tonks did not drop.

Tonks righted and turned to face Hermione who now looked dumbly at her wand as though she thought it was actually broken.

But Harry knew what had happened: Tonks was armoured with spell-proof clothing. Just like Malfoy was.

Tonks raised her wand to Hermione, half-laughing and, horribly, half-crying – as though she were in some terrible conflict –

Luna took a half-step forward toward the line of fire and Harry hurtled down the aisle at a run. As Tonks shot, Harry leapt through the air and Hermione instinctively crouched, and was not hit. Because Tonks had stepped to the outside of the church and had shot to seal the open doorway with a transparent barrier charm, which Harry now bounced back off, hurled to the floor by the very Muggle forces of physics and gravity.

Malfoy, breaking free of a shocked and staring Ron, screeched half in panic and half in smug, self-justification, _"See? I TOLD YOU SO!"_

"But why did you tell us this now, why not earlier?" Harry bit out, livid.

"Why should I have done earlier? I thought I could still use her! I told you to keep Longbottom safe from Aurors – and that was enough. But she _knows _about me now! She saw me with you all! She knows I just countermanded her order to grab Long-face. She's as much a danger to me as she is to you, now! Of course I told on her! _And now we're all trapped inside this sodding church while she's running around outside getting ready to Apparate off and tell on me!"_

Harry flung a hurried glance at Tonks through the seemingly open doorway as Luna stepped forward and calmly helped him up. He nearly tugged his arm away from her crossly – _No thanks! I can help myself, you know!_ – but realised that would be a very rude thing to say.

Just because he'd made himself look like a fool by bouncing off an invisible barrier, he knew that was no reason to take his embarrassment out on Luna - or on anyone else.

Luna was standing very close to him now. Looking up at him. He wanted to look down at her, to smile, to try and give her some intimation about how -

But everyone was watching and –

He looked back at Tonks and thought that Malfoy's description of 'running around' was a bit of a misnomer as Tonks was now giving vent to a wild, sobbing laughter – she was standing there, laughing crazily even as tears poured down her face!

Ron hurled Malfoy aside and lurched down the aisle toward the crazy-looking Tonks and then halted jarringly, half-swerving wildly back to the winded Malfoy.

"Has she got my sister?"

"What?" gasped Malfoy. "What do you mean – _got your sister?"_

"Ginny – she's run away from Hogwarts!"

"WHAT?" 

Malfoy was up on his feet. _"Do you know how stupid, how dangerous - !"_ His voice was practically a scream.

"Pull yourself together, Malfoy. She's not that helpless and pathetic," snapped Harry. "She beat you that time in Umbridge's office!"

"Are you cracked? - _I let her win!_ Do you think that bunch of losers could have escaped that office if I'd been even half-way trying?"

"Well we had been practicing our spells, Draco – and surprisingly, Harry is a very good teacher."

Malfoy gave Luna a scrunch-faced, astounded look and then turned back to Harry.

"They didn't even have their wands to start with and they were _GAGGED!_ I knew it was going crazy, I knew Umbitch had lost it when she tried to shoot you with that _Crucio_ – I 'dropped the wands on the floor', I practically _gave_ them their effing wands! Ginny Weasley only won that silly little Bat Bogey shoot-out of hers because I wasn't trying to beat her! And she had the confidence of _knowing_ that I wasn't going to hurt her! _She always knew!" _

Ron turned, jabbed a finger in the direction of the hysterical Tonks and yelled,_ "Shoot her!"_

"We can't!" screamed Hermione. "We're locked in a church, remember? We can't shoot anyone!"

Ron froze.

Harry wasn't sure what Ron was going to do.

Then he found out.

Ron picked up a heavy lectern and, swinging it hard, smashed it through a stained glass pane. "Can't get out the door, eh? No problem: I'll use the window instead."

He leapt through the window – scratching himself badly on shards of glass and pieces of snapped-off lead binding - and then Harry Potter was treated to the sight of Ron Weasley going flat at it with a professional Auror.

Ron did not rely on magic. Even in her conflicted, weakened state, Tonks was a skilled magical combatant who could take him in a hex-fight. Plus she had all that armour going for her. She shot at Ron who managed to Protego her off as he pulled the only move he could: he dragged the fight down onto a level where he could win. He simply charged straight at her, yelling all the way, smashed into her and knocked her off her feet.

And then, very ungentlemanly, he started punching her out before she could use her advantage of overwhelming magical force.

He didn't have it all his own way though. Tonks was an Auror – however innately clumsy – and she'd been trained in unarmed combat. As they rolled over and over on the ground, struggling - Ron trying to fend Tonks' wand-arm off as she fired random, wild spells - Ron yelled as Tonks gouged him and in turn Harry was pretty sure Ron got in a head-butt.

Hermione gasped in horrified admonishment, "Oh, Ron! Don't! _Not her face!"_

Luna wriggled up between Harry and Hermione to look out the window and Harry made a space for her.

Her curious gaze took in the brawl.

"Oh dear – I do think eye-gouging should be made illegal, don't you?"

As Neville ran the length of the church to the door, throwing prayer books hard against the invisible barrier to see when the spell faded and they could get through, Malfoy forcibly twisted up amongst Harry and Hermione to take a view. Hermione gave him a disgruntled look as he squeezed into her space. Peeved, she smoothed her ruffled clothes and reached under her collar, rummaging about to yank up a fallen vest-strap that looked like it had once started off green but had gone grey in the wash.

Malfoy caught sight of it and snorted with a sudden, irrepressible laughter, "Good God, woman! What kind of underwear do you own!"

Ignoring her aggravated look, Malfoy forcibly shoved his wand out the window and, without preamble, tried to shoot Tonks with another _'Finito Imperius'_ - but he was unable to get the angle. He then stuck his head out to get a gander at the terrible, punching, gouging, biting, kicking, snarling, head-butting, rolling over and over, two-way set-to, with wild spells flinging from Tonks' wand left and right.

And gawped and then … gave way to helpless laughter.

"Oh my God, that's so _sick _it's actually _funny!"_

His knees almost collapsed, he slid down the inside of the wall, he was abruptly laughing so hard.

Harry thought there was an edge of hysteria to it.

Harry went into action and dragged himself up and over the stone-mullioned window-ledge, pulling Hermione and Luna after him, leaving the hysterically laughing Malfoy to struggle out of his own accord.

Malfoy, eventually rolling out of the smashed window and collapsing to the ground outside from where he struggled to get up, was howling with laughter, jabbing his wand with the aim of a drunk, laughing so hard that he was actually unable to voice a spell.

Harry and Hermione hurtled over to the still struggling Tonks and Ron, trying to dodge Tonks' wildly arcing spellfire as they went. They didn't dare shoot for fear of hitting Ron instead of Tonks. Luna ran after them as Neville finally managed to smash his way through the ever-thinning door barrier.

Malfoy was still laughing helplessly far behind them, "What a _wanker! _Why doesn't he just go for her wand, and cut out three-quarters of the fight?"

The brawl was so scything that even the wildlife of the churchyard was running for cover: night-jars, foxes, even two very young badgers.

And then Malfoy's laughter was cut off sharply as, to everyone's horror, Tonks' wild spellfire slashed a fox in two – just like that. She was firing a continuous, undirected, wildly jumping arc of _Sectumsempra. _

Snapping and twitching, unpredictably jolting through the air, without warning it changed direction -

Straight to Harry Potter.

Only for Luna Lovegood to calmly, deliberately and without any drama whatsoever, step right in front of it and take the brunt.

Harry saw a shocking, blinding white flash, as though a frame in a film projector had burnt out … and then the movie-reel leapt into forward motion again, jolting along but at all the wrong speeds: moving at slow-motion and then at fast-forward, switching back and forth from one to the other, all getting mixed up.

Slow-motion: spurting blood arcing into the air, a staggering backwards as Luna fell against him and he clumsily tried to catch her, instinctively wrapping his arms about her waist and then finding something horribly _loose_ and sticky to the touch …

Fast-forward: Hermione's shriek of _Stupefy_ with Tonks then jolted into unconsciousness.

Slow-motion: the long, slow slide of Luna down his body, as he tried to hold her up but her legs gave way and the horrible knowledge that in even trying to hold her up, he might be somehow _ripping _her - tearing her even more widely open.

Fast-forward: Neville's roar of _"NO!"_ Then instantly Apparating off to get help, shouting something about _Dittany_.

Slow-motion: Luna's breathy, almost disbelieving moan. A feeble clutching at Harry's sleeve even as she slid to the ground.

Hermione on her knees, little shrieks of panic breaking from her, face white, forcing her fingers to fumble at the buttons of Luna's cardigan, trying to get a look at the wound to judge the extent of it and see what could be done.

Luna groaning and weakly trying the push aside Hermione's hands, hoping that somehow it would heal itself if just left alone.

Hermione's stifled, horrified gasp, body suddenly rigid, as she saw the extent of the damage … the horrible, glistening, spilling …

Harry's own utterly meaningless, 'it's alright, it's alright', even though it obviously wasn't.

Hermione's hurried actions to somehow fold Luna up, bring her knees up, somehow curl her into herself and press down on her, that she could somehow stop the horrible _spilling, _that through sheer effort of will she could somehow _force_ life to stay in Luna Lovegood.

Malfoy racing up, all laughter gone, face a mask of disbelieving horror. _"There's a counter spell!"_

And then an ever-louder, shrieking tumble of voices as it became horrifyingly clear that no-one – Ron, Hermione, Malfoy - quite knew what it was, with Ron and Malfoy lashing at each other with accusation and counter-accusation, almost as though if they could just row with each other, then they could ignore the fact that Luna Lovegood was bleeding to death in the churchyard and that they could do nothing about it …'_You were there, Smellfoy! You got hit with it! You must know what the counter-spell is! … Of course I don't! I was on the bathroom floor bleeding to death. I wasn't in a position to know! …'_

"You have to live, Harry, do you see?" Harry became aware that Luna was trying to talk. How long had she been trying to speak to him, tell him things, with him unable to hear her? How much time had he wasted? "I know you have it somewhere within you to defeat him, Harry … so you had to live …"

He didn't want to hear it. Even as he gave a show of listening, even as he _was_ listening, crouched over her making pointless shush noises, it was as though it was all just a radio left on in another room. Because as Ron and Malfoy still raged on, Harry could hear a much clearer voice within him: the person in that bathroom who had the best chance of remembering the spell was himself, but he hadn't been paying attention.

He'd spent most of his life not paying attention.

Horribly, Luna convulsed – Harry felt a ghastly phrase fire through his head: death throes. The inner voice rose to an accusatory shriek: _why hadn't he ever paid any sodding attention?_

"My memories!" he screamed, face contorted, staring wildly up at Malfoy, "It's in my memory! _I saw Snape do it!"_

There was a frozen moment, and then a wild spurt of action, way beyond fast-forward now, they were now into the realm of jump-cutting, just flashing montages of activity. Malfoy down on one knee, wand pointed at Harry's head, trying to draw out memories in a long, silvery skein, muttering a long string of swear-words as he did so, or maybe just one swear-word, over and over again: the word 'fuck' used in every possible combination of noun, verb and adjective. Ron's roar of 'Accio font' and the huge tearing crash of the stone font tumbling across the churchyard: a makeshift pensieve.

Both lads driven on by the thought that if they could just get there _fast enough_, then they could still do this.

Separate from them, Hermione was still trying to fold Luna's legs up, trying to hold her together.

"I never did believe that you had gone into the Ministry after that love potions thing, Harry." Luna's voice was actually calm now after her brief death-struggle, almost as though she had already gone into some other space. "Hiding in the Ministry seemed so unlike you."

Harry wanted to shriek, that or find words that would sound grown-up and noble and proper and make it alright, but he couldn't make any noise at all … he was too busy trying to furiously swallow a lump in his throat.

Her face then went slightly pink: horribly at odds with her increasingly waxy pallor. "Not that I'd presume to know you very well – or at all, really. I mean, I don't know you any more than most people … I haven't been _watching_ you especially … though I _do_ – did – _like_ you, you know, like _that_ …"

Even as she died, she was going pink – pink because she was embarrassed.

Ron and Malfoy seemed to occupy some alternate reality although they were right next to them: a reality of hectic activity and swearing and feeding memories into a font which Ron was shouldering upright … but they were just denying reality with action. Harry knew it was just him and Luna really. He was the one. He was the one who had to find the strength to be calm and to make her last memory be of someone who wasn't screaming hysterically …

Off somewhere, Harry heard Hermione's breath come in panicked pants.

"Don't be afraid, Harry." Luna's voice seemed actually untroubled now, "I know it will be you and Voldemort in the end, but don't be afraid … this world isn't the only one …"

Luna believed in God and Heaven, but Luna believed in Snorkacks and Wrackspurts … 'God' and 'Heaven' were just one more set of things she believed in – like Father Christmas and the Easter Bunny - and so for Harry, her believing in them didn't make them any truer than Loser's Lurgy.

"I'm glad you're not with the Aurors or the Ministry, Harry." Her voice was very faint now, but still quite lucid. "Daddy always said that the Ministry was untrustworthy. He always said they were breeding Heliopaths …"

And there was a silence and Harry looked down and Luna Lovegood - was gone.

Ron and Malfoy were still raging and swearing, but there was a quietness at the centre of the churchyard now, as Harry, Luna and Hermione made a very still tableaux.

Hermione slowly let Luna's legs unfold and then covered her body with her cloak, not looking at the wound.

Alerted, Malfoy and Ron jarred to a halt and jerked looks. Ron's mouth was open, Malfoy was blinking. The sign that they had given up was that the silvery skein of memories spooled back into Harry's head, released by the unconscious fall of Malfoy's wand. Both Ron and Malfoy looked swamped by utter disbelief: having to face the fact that for all their action and determination, they had achieved nothing.

Tonks groaned and Ron hauled off and started roaring, shaking her with anger.

Tonks – more Imperius machine than person – flicked wide awake at that and snarled up at Ron, clawing at him. In the tangle of fighting limbs, Ron lurched back, his hand yanking something from around Tonks' neck that flashed gold. There was no time even to clearly see what it was before Tonks snarlingly jerked it off him and – stopping it from falling into his hands – hurled it so that it flew upward.

It arced through the air … a large golden locket, incised with a curling 'S', curving through space only to splash into the black lake and immediately sink below the oily waters.

The Slytherin Horcrux.

Hermione gave a startled gasp.

Ron smashed Tonks unconscious with a right-hook.

"_Accio Horcrux!"_

Malfoy had hauled himself together fast enough to go after the Horcrux instead of after Tonks, but the Horcrux didn't come. Instead, a disconnected Harry, with Luna still half in his lap, registered that there was all the air of Malfoy tugging at a taught fishing-line as he yanked his wand backwards like a rod, as though attempting to reel in a particularly protesting fifty-pound carp.

Harry's gaze drifted from Malfoy to the lake and back. It didn't seem important now … not right now. Later, maybe.

Malfoy gritted his teeth, straining with everything in him and gradually even the actual _surface _of the lakebegan to pull up in a peak toward him – but not the Horcrux!

Ron gawped, aghast, at the lake – what the hell was keeping that Horcrux back?

Then Harry did shift as though to rise, because the surface of the lake seemed to boil – as though there were a multitude of roiling fish just beneath it.

And then he saw it.

A horrible, bluish, scaly-looking, _dead_ hand - arising from the surface, clutching the Horcrux.

A terrible groaning noise as a hundred dead-eyed, grey-fleshed heads broke the surface, mouths open, drooling out their soul-chilling moan.

The chorus of the dead.

Inferi.

Lots of them.

And now they had the Horcrux.

_No – no – NO!_

And then Harry almost started screaming in shock, horror and frustration.

He'd lost Luna, and now he'd just lost a Horcrux?

_NO!_

With one, last, teeth-gritting heave, Malfoy yanked on the Horcrux … and the magic connection snapped and the Horcrux slid back beneath the now-smoothing lake.

Magic had failed them.

Malfoy screamed to Harry. "For God's sake, help me! We need the locket! It's too late for Lovegood now! But they were after the Weasel's sister, I _told _you so! If they've got her, I can use it to trade! _They're after the Weasel's sister!"_

There was a panicked silence in which Hermione's eyes flicked wide in shock and Ron … started running toward the lake. After a second of horrified realisation, Harry lurched upright, ignored the sickening thump of Luna's weight slumping to the dirt, and lurched after him.

"_Ron, DON'T!"_

"We need it! This thing isn't over till we've got it!"

"We can get it later!"

"It'll be gone by then!"

"For God's sake, _just leave it!"_ Harry caught up with him and yanked Ron around. _"Don't be nuts!"_

"But it's my fault, Harry!"

Harry was aghast with incomprehension.

"_It's my fault!"_ Ron shouted, as if turning up the volume would somehow get the point across. "Luna! If I'd not been messing about, making a meal of it, showing off – if I'd gone for her wand like I should. Without the wand, there is no wizard, Harry! _I was just wasting time!"_

"For God's sake! Do you think Luna would want you racing into a lake of -"

"And I was having goes at her! If it wasn't for me -"

"You _weren't_ having goes at Luna!"

"Not her – _Ginny!"_

Harry blinked.

"She's my sister! She ran away from school because I was having goes at her!"

"_Everyone_ was having goes at her! She didn't run away from school just because of you! Why has it got to be just about you?"

"_Because I'm her brother!_ You don't understand, Harry – she's my sister! It doesn't matter if there are times when I don't even like her, _I love her anyway!"_

Ron lurched forward and Harry flung his hand out, catching hold of Ron as he made to get away. _"Don't! Don't go!"_

"Harry, I have to!" Ron tried to tug himself free of Harry's grip, "We have to get that Horcrux! Just one is enough to keep him going! I can't just hang around here waiting for luck – our only chance now is for one of us to get into that lake and get it out!"

"If you do it, you won't be coming back! I know it! _Don't, Ron – don't!"_

"I've got to. It's the only way!" Ron jerked free of Harry and then turned back, gripping Harry's shoulder, "Harry, you just have to hold on and _– I'm sorry, Harry …" _

Then he was gone, leaving Harry to clutch at thin air. And with a last challenging, defiant roar, Ron Weasley sped into the churning lake at a flat dive: on a suicide mission to wrest a Horcrux from the underwater grip of a hundred Inferi.

Harry stood, dumbstruck, immobilised by the sheer madness of it.

Hermione screamed – high, ripped and piercing. She left Luna and raced toward the lake, aiming to go in after her friend. But Malfoy, racing behind her, grabbed her back at the last second, her ankles and feet actually wet from having splashed into the water at a run. She bucked and heaved, kicking and screaming as Malfoy clamped her to him, his arm across her waste, dragging her back: he'd lost one girl tonight, he wasn't losing two.

Spellfire flashed from her wand and flames hit the surface of the lake like lightning, making it steam and sizzle, turning the dark night red, like a vision of hell to a soundtrack of screaming and moans.

She was shooting waterproof fire – a known specialty of hers.

Fire.

The one element that could drive back Inferi.

But it was hopeless because the flames couldn't get below the surface.

And she didn't know where Ron was anyway.

And the surface was boiling now as though a terrible struggle as taking place below it.

And Harry found that he was now running into the lake without even thinking about it and was yanked back, trainers and jeans wet, sprawling in the dirt.

"_Don't be crazy!" _screamed Malfoy, jerking Harry backwards with a spell.

Noises like yelling and shrieking – Harry wasn't sure which – were ripping out of his throat, then coalescing into one continuous, high scream at the sight of Ron now arching desperately up out of the lake, almost bent-back double by the tug of many scaly hands.

One of his legs was already clearly broken, but he had the Horcrux in his hand.

He had won, but at what a price.

Straining to do it, he hurled the Horcrux to the safety of the shore.

And was dragged back down again, the Inferi aiming to haul him to the drowning depths.

Harry was screaming: he'd lost Luna, he was losing Ron, he was losing everything.

With one last effort Ron rose again, head barely above the water, eyes terrified and wild, clammy Inferi hands all over his face, pulling him back and down. His hand reached out above him wildly – but to nothing. And Harry – screaming - knew that the sight of that desperate, clawing, reaching, hand would be the last he ever saw of Ron.

"_Do something!" _screamed Hermione.

And she was unceremoniously dropped by Malfoy.

"OI! WEASEL! _CATCH!"_

Malfoy's desperate scream ripped through the night air and he flung something which flew in a light, graceful arc – a crystal vial containing a flash of gold – to land in Ron's frantically outstretched fingers.

Then the hand and the vial were dragged below the surface with a last boiling churn and all was finally black and still.

Malfoy – saving his Felicis for 'something important', hoarding it selfishly for a dire situation – had just flung away the last of his luck in circumstances where almost certainly it could not do any good. Flung away the last of his luck on his despised school-boy enemy: Ronald Bilius Weasley.

There felt an age of silence. They weren't even breathing. As though if they all just stared at the lake hard enough – Harry, Hermione and Malfoy - then they could will the whole event away: Ron, Luna, everything.

It had all gone from comedy to disaster to tragedy, in minutes.

They never even thought to get away from the Inferi-infested lake, not even Malfoy.

They just stayed there, staring at the water, as though shielded by the power of sheer disbelief. That if they could just _refuse_ it, refuse to believe it, then it could not have happened, it would simply have to 'undo' somehow.

It couldn't have happened: Luna, Ron, none of it could have happened because it _wasn't fair!_

But it did not un-do because it couldn't. And Luna did not sit up straight, neatly brushing her skirts down, lightly announcing that 'I knew I'd mend if you just stopped fussing'. Ron did not come flying out of the lake, soaking wet, covered in weeds, trailing a broken leg, but swearing fit to bust and seething about, _'Call that bunch of wimps 'Inferi'? I've had practice with the twins, mate. That lot in the lake have a lot to learn!'_

And then Hermione slowly collapsed, sliding back as she crumpled, head thrown back, throat arching, face contorted. And then her fingers, like claws – horrifyingly still covered in Luna Lovegood's drying blood - reached up and silently pulled, increasingly frantically, at her hair, her head now frenziedly shaking from side to side.

And then a little sob.

And then she started screaming.

Her throat was ripped raw by a wild, uncontrollable, keening. She sank to the beachy shore, legs unable to hold her up even though they twisted uncontrollably under her, kicking and twisting in the sandy dirt as she shook, trembled and screamed in hysterical rejection of it all.

She was simply crazed. She couldn't even form words.

Railing against the inexorable, irreversible, _unfairness_ of what had just happened.

They had gotten the locket, but they had lost everything else.

It was horrifying: Hermione Granger, eloquent, verbal, an explainer and expounder, someone who thought rather than felt, was rendered utterly feral with pure, unstoppable grief.

Harry, staring maniacally at the lake, saw her from the corner of his eye as though she was on a movie-screen: she was there, with him, but he felt somehow removed. Instead, he was staring, freakishly wild-eyed, at the black, calm lake.

He could hear a rabid, violent swearing interspersed with hoarse screams and yells. There were swear-words there that he hadn't even heard before, as though someone was just jamming individual filthy words together in whatever obscene combination randomly occurred.

He thought that, oddly, it was Malfoy at first, but after what felt like forever, he realised it was himself.

But all the rage and all the grief and all the screaming disbelief was for nothing. Because the black surface of the lake simply lay there, inert, un-giving, unresponsive, indifferent. Behind them – Harry _couldn't _make himself turn to look – was a small girl with straggly, dirty-blond hair, her remains respectfully covered with a cloak.

The lake lay flat and black, gleaming slightly in the moonlight. Black: like polished granite - the stone of grave-markers.

"Accio Potter's bag!" Malfoy's voice shook even as the knap-sack hurtled toward him and he caught it with a thump. Malfoy also snatched up Tonks' wand and stuffed it in his pocket: the habit of dealing with enemies. He pointed his own wand and hit her with a full-on '_Finito Imperius', _hit her with it so hard that her stunned body actually twitched up off the ground for a second before thumping back down.

Harry didn't even feel shocked, scared, negative, as he half-turned to see Malfoy rooting about desperately inside the knap-sack for the box: he didn't feel anything at all.

He had his wand, he could have even shot Malfoy, but he didn't.

Let Malfoy have the box if he wanted it.

Nothing seemed to matter now.

Hermione shifted abruptly, a squirreling, frantic, feral, scuttle, and she grabbed the locket and clutched it possessively to her with a snarl. It sprang open in her hand and she looked blankly down at the portraits within – a man and a woman - before absently closing it and looping it defiantly about her neck.

Malfoy made absolutely no move to take it from her.

The enormity of the price of getting it … 

Too much for even Malfoy to pay.

"He won't trade, you know." Harry registered that his voice was now very flat, very even, very dead. With death on both sides – before him in the lake and behind him on the beach - he was surprised that he wasn't still screaming. "Do you seriously think he's planning on trading? For your Mum? For anyone else? You're just kidding yourself."

Malfoy's voice was trembling, "I've got to so something, Potter. He's got Mother even if he hasn't got," he couldn't bring himself to say the name, "_anyone else_. I've got to go back. I can't not do it. I won't join the Dead Mother's Society without a fight."

He finally managed to tear the box free from the bag.

On the floor, Hermione gave a gurgling gasp, hand to her mouth.

"And at least this isn't Horcrux," continued Malfoy. "Fact is, Potter, that although you seem to think he made six Horcruxes, he says he only made five. The ring, that diary, the cup, the locket," he nodded, indicating the object which now hung about Hermione's neck, "and the Longbottom one." He hefted the box, "As to this thing, he took it to Godric's Hollow that night he tried to do for you: he was trying to kill you to make your death the engine for the sixth Horcrux and he was going to use the box for the object." He weighed the box in his hand as though it were a brick he were about to throw through a shop window. "This isn't a Horcrux -"

Harry knew that already.

" – but he intends it to be, when he kills you."

Hermione's gaze was fastened to the box as it shifted heavily in Malfoy's grip. It was hard to tell if she was even taking in his words.

"Anyhow, right now, Potter, it's the least dangerous thing I can think of to trade with him, yet with it still being something he wants."

In the distance, Harry could hear some of the folk of Hogsmeade, hurrying toward the commotion. Lights were flickering on.

Neville would surely be back soon with lots of help – but this time all too late.

Malfoy glanced nervously over Harry's shoulder, taking in the approaching villagers. He could not afford to be caught here. He flicked his gaze back to the lake.

Harry noted that Malfoy, now swallowing, was studiously avoiding looking at the small girl on the ground.

He remembered again … _I don't hit girls _…

Malfoy's voice, when it came, was high and jumpy.

"Looks like the war's finally started, Potter. Looks like this is it. The Inferi in the lake? Hardly an accident. This is an attack." He looked back at Harry. "It's a tiara, Potter."

"What?"

"The Longbottom Horcrux. It's a tiara – a silver tiara."

Harry blinked.

Hermione's gaze was now riveted to the box.

Malfoy chucked Harry his knap-sack. Harry didn't need to be told that Malfoy was about to Disapparate.

Hermione grunted, scrabbling to her feet, and hurtled at Malfoy.

Harry started but could not grab her back.

She was trying to stop Malfoy from Disapparating?

But Malfoy was committed, he was in mid-turn, he couldn't stop, and Hermione got a hand to him as he swept away in a swirl.

Swept away … with Hermione Granger swept right along beside him.

xxx

Malfoy half-gasped as he felt the extra weight of her in mid-flight, instinctively freeing a hand to grip the wrist of her wand-hand - if she became detached from him in mid-apparition she would fall, screaming out of mid-air from thousands of feet up, crashing to her death who knew where. Grasping her, the box was now held to him only by the pressure of his arm.

He staggered to a heavy landing, unbalanced by the load of his unexpected passenger, and the box hit the carpet and rolled over and over, lying on the floor for anyone to see, dully glinting.

Hermione landed against him, half stumbling, and Malfoy still gripped her by her wand-wrist even as the locket she openly wore around her neck knocked against him.

Her presence was unanticipated and worrying – she'd been absolutely crazed by that lakeside, she hadn't said a word since it had all happened - but he had a grip on her wand-hand and he could always knock her out and send her back. Well, send her somewhere safe, anyway.

But no, not back there to … not to where the Weasel was in the lake and that little girl lay dead …

He was ambushed by his own thoughts: if he'd told about Tonks earlier, if he hadn't been party to Imperiusing Tonks, none of that would have happened. _It was his fault. It was his -_

He yanked his thoughts together. He could scream at himself later. Right now, he just had to get through this night. And at least he and Granger were safe enough for the immediate time. He had traveled to his grandfather's study – well, the study of his house now. A house only a Malfoy could enter – well, a Malfoy and whoever they brought with them.

The room was warm, dark, a fire glowing in the grate.

"Hello Draco."

_What …?_

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Granger stiffen as she stared over his shoulder, her gaze wetly molten and unblinking.

Fighting down his horror at the recognised voice, he stilled, smoothing his expression, evening-out his mind, and slowly turned to present a cool urbane demeanour, Granger still gripped in his fist.

Ranged on the other side of the room, hard to identify individually in the gloom, was not just Voldemort but an entire collection of Death Eaters. And behind them, standing in a large cage, were a quietly weeping Ginny Weasley and a blank-faced Professor Trelawney.

Trelawney stood like a rag doll that had been propped up, lolling, somehow horribly _floppy_. Her gaze was unblinking, but not with determination or any kind of passion, but with some _lack_ – a lack of anything at all. She had been totally mind-ripped. Something had been forcibly torn loose, prised open. She was no further use to anyone.

In the semi-dark of the room, a further figure lay abandoned on the floor, it's limbs at weird angles, clearly dead.

Only the dead could look that strangely jumbled up – Malfoy was getting used to the sight.

It was female, it looked like – no, a jolt of relief, it wasn't Mother or Aunt Bella, it was … someone quite different.

No wonder the Weaslette was crying her eyes out.

Beside him, he saw Granger take in the corpse and then stare at the Death Eaters: mouth tight, eyes hot, silently shaking - with rage or terror, it was impossible to say.

Around her neck she defiantly wore the locket: the Death Eater gazes fastened upon it.

Malfoy instinctively gripped Granger's wrist even tighter – if she raged out, shooting now, she would be killed. It was too late to fight now, if they'd been going to do it they had to react in the first split-second and now they'd lost the edge. Instead, he forced his gaze back to the sight of Ginny Weasley trapped in a Death Eater cage. When he spoke, he was amazed at how light and amused he could make his voice sound.

"Well, girls in cages, who'd ever have thought it…?" He aped an unconcerned glance and flicked it in the direction of the weeping Ginny Weasley, "Shouldn't she be dancing in a mini-skirt and go-go boots, or something?"

xxx

The landlord of the Hogshead pulled up, heavy and stitch-ridden.

"Harry?" He could hardly get the words out, "- Harry Potter?"

Harry didn't even say anything, he just stared, blank and dumb.

"Thank God I've finally found you! My brother left instruction to me that it be only given to you. I would have given it to you before but I didn't know where you were but then I saw the commotion by the lake and -"

The man's words trailed off as he took in the two bodies on the floor.

His brows drew together in puzzlement. Wasn't that the pink-haired Auror …? And that little girl lying so still under that cloak …?

Distractedly now, staring with increasing concern at the two shapes lying where the churchyard met the beachy foreshore, he finished his sentence, "… my brother - Albus willed me to give you this."

It was an utterly inconsequential-looking paperweight.

Moving around Harry and staring at the two fallen shapes with an increasingly alarmed comprehension, Aberforth Dumbledore almost casually took one of Harry's limp hands and pressed the glass ball to him, curling Harry's unresponsive fingers around it.

Harry's arm fell back to hang loosely by his side. Holding on to the orb only because it lay in the crook of his hand.

He didn't look at Tonks or at … he didn't even want to think the name.

He didn't look at the lake.

He was burnt out. He simply did not care anymore.

Or told himself he didn't.

The truth was, he did not _want_ to care anymore.

Because if you didn't care, it didn't hurt when you lost.

And then the object heated up in his slack grip and that faintly niggling tug behind the navel and also a strange, whirling, flying-very-fast-backwards sensation that he'd felt once before if he could just be bothered to recall when …

His feet hit the stone-flagged floor with a jarring thump and he staggered as he landed, shaking his head to clear his vision.

Rugs were on the floor. Silver instruments whirred and tinkled on low tables. A bird-perch stood in a corner. For a wild second he thought he had been somehow swept to Malfoy's study – the one in his grandfather's house.

But he hadn't.

Instead, his dazed vision cleared to take in the portraits of the ex-Heads of Hogwarts along the walls. But somehow different – somehow frozen in a split-second of time.

Harry's gaze lurched about to check the portrait of Professor Dumbledore – had his portrait awoken? Was that why he was here?

But the portrait wasn't even there.

To his left was a long window through which he could see the sun set in a ruby-red glare along the horizon. The view reminded him of something: it was exactly the view from the window when he had last seen the Professor in this very room, the night they had argued about Snape, when Harry had been offered the chance to go to the cave and had then shot out of the office, using five minutes to say goodbye to Ron and Hermione …

… _say goodbye to Ron …_

… _he hadn't even said goodbye, and they'd been rowing for days …_

… _he hadn't even said goodbye to Luna although she'd been lying in his lap – he hadn't had the words …_

Luna – his thoughts flicked away. He just _couldn't_ –

His throat felt swollen with unshed tears. His nose felt blocked and snotty. It was very hard to swallow. His eyes were growing red and wet and hot and achy, tears would start trickling down soon and there was nothing he could do to stop them – he didn't want to stop them.

When the full knowledge finally got through to him about what had happened, about all that he had lost, he knew it was going to hurt like hell.

"Hello, Harry."

Professor Dumbledore's soft voice curled from behind his desk and, unsurprised, Harry turned very slowly to see him sitting there.

Quite alive.

Quite whole – except for his burned hand.

He looked at Harry almost apologetically over his half-moon spectacles.

"Well, Harry, I assume that as you have come back in time to see me, that I must be dead."

xxxxx

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Well, I did warn you that it was going to get mean. Yep, just when you thought, 'it's clearly H/L so she won't die' - I go and kill her! What a blood-thirsty little writer I am!

And on that double-whammy of a cliff-hanger - Draco and Hermione trapped with the Death Eaters and Harry swirled back in time - I'm stopping posting for today. I'll post more chapters tomorrow.


	28. Chapter 28

Title: (Chapter 28)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 

**Chapter 28**

For one horrified second, Malfoy thought they were actually going to take him up on that 'shouldn't she be dancing' comment and have Ginny Weasley twitching under the influence of an Imperius: a marionette, a jerking meat-puppet, some kind of live Inferius.

He wasn't sure what he would have done if they had. Laughed? Started screaming?

In the warmly lit study, Voldemort stared at him and gave that unsettling, lip-less smile and at that Malfoy did know one thing: with Granger, the box and the locket now all out in the open, he was going to have to come up with some smart explaining to stop he and Granger from getting very, very dead, very, very fast.

And he couldn't do that if he was going to berate himself over what had just happened at the church. Because all the way through trying to save that little Ravenclaw, he had been screaming on the inside: _why had he never learned the counter-spell to the Sectumsempra? _He had known full-well the effects: controlled viciousness proscribed by four short syllables. _Why hadn't he learned the sodding counter-spell?_

But he had known why: because he had been unable to make himself go anywhere near that damned spell after it had done with him. It had nearly killed him, it had shown him how weak he really was, he had just wanted to _dis_-remember the entire thing.

He knew he would never be able to use that spell unless he absolutely and utterly, no doubt about it, meant it.

And how would Professor Snape feel about it when he found out: the knowledge that a spell of his own creation had cut apart one of the most harmless of his own pupils?

He squashed the memories and the self-recriminations; self-preservation demanded it.

Okay, so what tools did he have to help him get out of this mess?

Granger? Yep, she was gripped in his fist, but if she would just keep her trap shut that was an advantage – because she could look like a captured prisoner just as easily as she did an accidental passenger. Her status was all a matter of perception. But if she lost it, if she started gobbing-off, screaming and ranting accusations, throwing out information as to just exactly what he had gone on in the church and on that beach, then she was a danger to him and to herself – she knew too much about what he'd been up to.

She knew he had betrayed the Tonks connection if nothing else.

The splash of a single tear hit his wrist – Granger was silently weeping at all that had happened - he stiffened and then straightened: _ignore it!_ No time for despondency, he couldn't afford it, not even with his bank account. Potter had nearly gotten him killed in that bathroom with the Sectumsempra, just like Granger could get him killed right now with an intemperate response.

So, what else did he have?

Ginny Weasley and Professor Trelawney? Useless. Mentally, Trelawney looked as though she'd been destroyed already and Ginny Weasley couldn't stop crying – a small, broken, mewling sound.

No wonder, seeing what was on the floor.

It was almost offensive that in the cage, squiggling about on the floor next to her, chirruping occasionally, was that 'effing stupid Puff thing that she had as a pet.

He blinked when he saw what looked like snapped twigs on the floor of the cage: Ginny Weasley's and Trelawney's destroyed wands. He looked away but then felt that familiar wave of teeth-gritting exasperation at the whole issue of 'Ginny Weasley'.

Ginny Weasley's crappy, cheap, hand-me-down wand. He'd spent years feeling annoyed just looking at it! Why hadn't she just asked him for help? Why hadn't she just asked him for a wand? He was rich, he'd always had money – he would have just _bought_ her a new one!

But he couldn't afford the luxury of that irritation now either.

He concentrated on the broken wands … so, Trelawney and Girl-Weasel were powerless? Even less help there, then …

What else did he have …?

The box? It was now as much a bust as the locket. He had planned on having something bargain with for his mother, but that had necessarily been predicated upon negotiating from a distance – from a range at which the Dark Lord could not simply reach out and grasp his bargaining chips, or grasp _him_. You couldn't bargain with the Dark Lord when what you had to bargain with – and indeed yourself – were in the same damned room as him! It made a suicidal nonsense of the entire endeavour! Indeed, now that the box and the locket were out in the open, he now needed an explanation about them too – about how he'd got them. With this sudden shift in events - where he'd been tipped into negotiation before he'd ever planned it, and thus negotiation was rendered impossible – in one swoop, the box and locket had gone from being assets to being liabilities.

But still … he could salvage something from that …

And he did have five years practice of playing Poker.

Bluff and counter-bluff …

The locket was a bust, the Death Eaters could all see it there, so … relinquish with grace, make it look like he'd planned to give it over, because it was the only benefit he could now gain from it …

Smiling determinedly, he reached out with his free hand and tugged Granger's wand from her resisting fingers. At that, she struggled slightly in his grip but – with her teeth slightly bared – she eventually let go.

He dropped the wand into his pocket.

If she couldn't use it anyway, he might as well gain kudos from being seen to take it from her.

Besides, rather he than anyone else.

Still with that determined smile, he pointed his wand and charmed the locket from around Granger's neck, unwinding its chain from about her like a golden snake, lifting it through her hair and over her head, floating it through mid-air, across to Voldemort's greedy, appreciative grasp.

He felt Granger tense as the locket left her, on the verge of lashing out a hand to try and grab it back, but his grip tightened about her wrist in a silent message – _don't!_ Because making a show of grabbing at it would be useless, they couldn't keep it anyway, and the only thing her rebellion would achieve would be to undermine Malfoy's already precarious position.

Granger stilled and remained motionless, and Malfoy hoped it was a sign that, inside, she was not as broken as she looked.

Voldemort stared at him and Malfoy stared back – _obscuration, veils, flicking though decks of cards – _and then Voldemort laughed.

Malfoy refused to allow himself to feel relieved, to feel anything at all.

Voldemort shifted to stare down at the locket in his hand. He held it up and examined it, pressing at various parts of it as if to try and open it, but nothing happened. "It never would open for me," he mused. "But then, I expect it hasn't opened in a thousand years. Maybe it was never designed to. Maybe there's nothing in it?"

And Malfoy was very glad right then that Voldemort was staring at the locket as he spoke and not at him – because the locket had sprung open in Granger's hand practically the moment she'd touched it.

"And the box, Draco?"

Malfoy tried not to jolt as Voldemort stared keenly at him again.

"Yours, obviously."

True – because they could no more extract the box now than they had been able to keep hold of the locket.

At a twitch of Voldemort's wand, the box rose from the floor and floated into his grasp.

He sighed as he caught it.

Malfoy found himself wondering what that thing really was. It wasn't a Horcrux, but … there wasn't anything worse than a Horcrux, was there?

Maybe it was time to change the subject?

"Nice that you brought company," Malfoy nodded to the cloaked Death Eaters, arrayed behind Voldemort. "How did you get in?"

"All in good time, Draco. There has been a rather wonderful Death Eater break-out from Azkaban tonight. Tonks has been very useful, she was going to Azkaban and it did seem appropriate -"

Malfoy started, suddenly realising that explained the large number of Death Eaters in the room.

" – and the Aurors have had to spread themselves thin, moving away from Hogwarts to search for the escapees. It makes tonight the ideal time."

_The ideal time for what?_

"If there's been a break-out, where's my father?"

Voldemort ignored the question.

"Now, to return to matters which interest me … you brought the box and the locket back here? Even though you did not know I would be here? Were you ever planning to give them to me, Draco?"

Nothing like a one-inch punch to unsettle someone, but Malfoy could answer honestly, "Yes." And that was quite true, because he had been planning to give them to Voldemort – but only in exchange for Mother and other captives.

"And the Mudblood? You brought her here? Why is she here?"

Voldemort was pressing for answers.

_Why indeed? Because it was an accident, and I never planned that part and never would have done it if …_

"Hostage." He gave a long blink as he spoke that word, almost as though he'd been closing his eyes but … not. Then he gazed normally. "I've just been in a trade," – true – "with Potter," – true – "I swapped information for the box," – true – "and as it turned out, I unexpectedly got my hands on the locket too," – true. "Looks like it's your lucky night."

Sadly, that last part was all too true.

He continued, "I thought Granger could serve as a decent enough hostage," – which was disturbingly true – "because I've had to trade some high-end stuff to get that box." Which was unrelated, but also true.

"And that information would be …?"

"The identity of the 'missing' Horcrux."

Malfoy let the gasps wash over him: what the other Death Eaters thought was an irrelevancy, Voldemort was the only one who counted.

"I traded the identity of the Longbottom Horcrux," he continued. "I traded a 'possible' – the increased possibility that they could get it - for an 'actual' – the actuality that we would have one more thing we wanted," he indicated the fallen box. "So, I knew that if Potter subsequently got hold of the lost Horcrux based on my information, then I knew that you would want something, or _someone_, to hold over him in turn to get the tiara back off him."

Which was also very true. He had never planned to kidnap anyone – but he had known that it would make sense to do so, and that was all he had said: that he had _known_ it.

"Why didn't you ask for assistance in your endeavours? We could have snatched Potter too."

_Because I had no intention of letting you get your hands on that box directly …_

"Because he wouldn't have come to make the trade if he'd thought it was a trap, and so I wouldn't have got the box," - true. "And Potter thought that it was a good idea to have the swap in a church," – true, Harry had thought it was a good idea, but only after Malfoy had set it up first, "and as churches are warded, there couldn't have been any violence or Dark Spells anyway. So lunging in there with a troop of trained Death Eaters would have been rather beside the point." True.

"Why did you come here, Draco?"

_Still back on that one, eh? My weak point. Why I didn't go straight to him …?_

"I left the trade in a hurry – I was being closed in on by Hogsmeade villagers, there wasn't much time to consider where to go."

Which was wonderfully, fortuitously, true.

For someone engaged in an almost continuous deception, Draco Malfoy was being very particular about telling the truth.

Voldemort smiled almost admiringly, "Devious, Draco. But then … I wanted the sharpest of tools. From the very start, I had to accept the danger that I might be cut using you."

Which was a very unsettling thing to have said, and Malfoy knew it, but he did not have the mental resources left lying around spare to consider it: he was using everything he had in an effort to stay 'not dead'.

A continuous, snuffling crying was coming from the cage. Ginny Weasley was still sobbing out that broken mewling.

But Malfoy saw that Voldemort was indifferent to it and was instead surveying the staring, empty-eyed Granger and … he felt a spike of panic. Because she had just seen one of her best friends – one of her _only_ friends – dive into a lake full of Inferi and not come out. She had just seen a little girl sliced practically in two and had tried to hold her life together with her bare hands – God, how much blood was on Granger's hands?

In fact, was there any blood on _him?_ The fewer details he needed to explain away, the better. But he was dressed all in black, so the stains wouldn't show anyway and –

And she, the voluble, wordy, Granger - a person who wouldn't speak a sentence if she could speak a whole paragraph - hadn't said a word since. Who knew what she'd say if she did start speaking? He didn't know if Granger was going to kick-off. If he did, she'd blow it for him!

He had to throw something distracting into the mix!

Staring at Granger, the Dark Lord was opening his mouth to speak and Malfoy's words leapt out.

"Also, given victory," Malfoy wasn't even sure what he was going to actually say, "I thought it would be amusing to have Granger as my … my own special …" he swallowed, trying to avoid the word, but there was no other and – "my own special … _pet."_

He could have kicked himself! Distracting? It was distracting alright, but had he have to say quite that? Granger was standing right next to him! She'd remember all of this if they lived. Did he want her _knowing_ this stuff?

And worse, with a sort of sick, sliding sensation in his guts, he had realised as he said it that it was coldly, effectively and sleazily … _true_.

Granger as a human-pet? It _might_ very well have been 'amusing'.

In his nastiest, darkest fantasies, in his absurd day-dreams of power, whiling away time in the school library, considering a Death Eater victory almost as an abstraction – never really believing it would ever happen – he had to admit to himself now that he had considered, with a gut-churning glee, having Granger – specifically _Granger_ – as his 'pet'.

He'd considered it ever since he'd gotten her so wound up in third-year that she'd snapped and been reduced to slapping his face.

Nothing like slapping someone's face for getting their attention.

Voldemort smiled again, "Not the Weasley girl?"

Malfoy forced himself not to blink and to keep his voice even. "Why not both?"

Which was a question rather than a lie.

Because there was absolutely no way he'd ever thought like that with Ginny Weasley. He'd tried, but he just couldn't.

The person, the 'filthy little mouse' who invaded his real fantasies, the person whose face he saw at the last, was Granger.

Ginny Weasley was his vision of perfection – of who he might be. Granger was something far more human – she represented the grubby reality of who he really was.

"Why not?" Voldemort regarded Hermione. "A filthy little Mudblood concubine …?"

Malfoy's hand convulsively gripped Granger's wrist – _say nothing!_

"A diverting little peccadillo? Often the most rarified bloodlines have a taste for the most sordid of pleasures, Draco. The most refined having a taste for the most squalid …" Voldemort was now watching Hermione almost with an air of dispassion, "Something barely human - deliciously _filthy_. You have engaging tastes, Draco."

Without warning, Voldemort's gaze sharpened as he shot his glance at Malfoy, "Why didn't you select Ronald Weasley as a hostage? You had already said that he was the one Potter cared about."

_Bugger! He had said that and – Christ, that mewling, crying noise from the cage. It was such a distraction and - _

"I'm afraid he's too dead to be of use."

True – he was afraid that Weasley was too dead to be of use. Which was not precisely the same thing as 'Weasley is dead'. That latter would have been a lie, because Weasley might still, just, be alive.

The snuffling from the cage grew even more desolate at that news.

Malfoy hardened to it.

He was amazed at just how urbane, how relaxed, he could keep his voice when his mind was tearing along at a thousand miles a minute. "He went into a lake of 100 Inferi," he explained, "so on that basis I'd assume he was definitely dead. Wouldn't you?"

On that basis, _anyone_ would assume Ron Weasley was definitely dead – if they didn't know about the Felix that had been flung in after him.

_And if Granger could just keep her mouth shut …_

And flinging in a question at the end of the sentence had really helped, because it put the Dark Lord on the back-foot slightly, it distracted him momentarily, made him think.

_Okay, so go for another question … _

"So, with all those Inferi rolling about in it, didn't anyone worry that the Hogsmeade lake would look a bit like an over-stocked salmon farm?"

_Uh? And couldn't he come up with something a less suicidally glib than that, please, because -_

"The Hogsmeade _what?"_ Voldemort's bark yanked Malfoy up short. "I do not have any Inferi stationed there!"

"Well someone does," Malfoy yelped, "– because there's hundreds of 'em!"

Voldemort whirled about, gaze scything through his Death Eaters. "Have any of you been acting without my permission? Have any of you stationed my Inferi in the lake without consulting me?"

There was a mumble of negative responses and Voldemort slowed and then laughed.

"They're not mine!" His laughter was like splinters of glass. "Of course! They're not mine! Rufus Scrimgeour! I always knew he was ruthless! What a wonderful Death Eater he would have made – if it hadn't been for that last tiny core of conscience!"

Malfoy's eyes widened.

_Rufus Scrimgeour …?_

He thought fast. Because getting the answer out first, ahead of anyone else, would shore up his place as a valuable player, and if he could stay alive he could still help Ginny Weasley – _and God, but could she just try to stop crying?_ – and help what was left of Trelawney, and help Granger and help Mother. Whether Granger and Girl-Weasel realised it or not, right now he was all they had.

_So come on – THINK!_

"It …"

_What? Come on – WHAT?_

"It …" - and then he had it. "_It was that bloody Brockdale Bridge thing!"_ He seized upon it. "The bridge collapsed and hundreds of Muggles went into the water, nearly all drowned, but few bodies were recovered! Magic was used at the site … they were _Inferiused!_" At his next, he was genuinely puzzled, "Did he just take advantage of an accident, or did he cause the bridge to collapse in the first place so he could get a huge," God, this next was an awful word, but it was the only one that presented itself to him, "… _harvest?"_

Voldemort gave an elegant shrug and an airy wave, indicating: _who knows …?_

But at least he was regarding Malfoy with renewed admiration and was off the topic of why he'd turned up with Granger instead of Ron Weasley and –

Oh no. The Inferi. They hadn't been Voldemort's, they had been Ministry! So the locket had not gone into Voldemort's hands. It would have just stayed in the lake or gone to the Ministry. Weasley had gone into that lake for nothing! And Granger would know it because she was just as smart as he was and she was standing right next to him and if she started screaming out the truth –

"So, do you have Inferi too? You mentioned that you did."

It was a question Malfoy didn't really care about, but if he could just keep talking it might shut Granger up and –

_And would Ginny Weasley just stop crying!_

"Certainly I do. It could only be expected. But unlike the Ministry's gaudy effort, mine was a clever plan, a subtle plan. You might appreciate the understated elegance of it, Draco. My Death Eaters – led by Travers - had infiltrated several Muggle Crematoria: stealing the bodies just as the coffins went into the furnace. When the grieving family were given ashes, who was ever to know that they were not those of the dear departed?"

Sick, twisted, and in its own way – brilliant.

The perfect, undetectable, Inferius-making machine.

"The key, of course," continued Voldemort, "was never to snatch a body which was in any way famous – one where the funeral might attract some special attention. It really was rather foolish of Travers to have tried it with a so-called Muggle 'Rockstar', and then even more unfortunate to have that particular Inferius escape to wander Marlborough High Street. The Muggles attached no importance to reports of it of course – they never do - but the wizarding authorities might very well have been alerted by it."

So Travers had then been killed to set an example … Malfoy remembered the man who had died screaming on the floor.

Just as he could die right now, if he wasn't careful.

He was amazed when his voice came out so evenly. "Was that how you got the Weasley girl and …?" He nodded at Trelawney and indicated the corpse on the floor. "Some kind of Inferius attack?"

"Hardly. I didn't require anything so ornate. We had a spy -"

_Who doesn't these days …?_

"- within the Weasley family."


	29. Chapter 29

Title: (Chapter 29)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 

**Chapter 29**

The past: the ultimate place to hide a secret. No written records. No clues. Nothing that could be found by the wrong person. As Harry stood in the Head's Office, with Professor Dumbledore seated almost apologetically behind the desk, he understood why he had never been able to find a message from the Professor: he hadn't been looking in the wrong place, just in the wrong time.

Professor Dumbledore had used the Hogwarts time-turner, amending it to also act as a Portkey then transfiguring it into something innocuous that would be activated only by Harry's touch, and then bequeathing it to Harry in his will via his brother, Aberforth – someone he totally trusted. That way, attention would not be drawn to it as it would if he'd bequeathed it directly to Harry, and he knew that Harry would only get it if he, the Professor, had already died.

He must have done it the very night they had gone to the cave.

He must have done it 'tonight'.

Foolproof.

Harry thought off all that as he screamed himself hoarse at the Professor.

"You can't say that! You can't say you won't change time. You have to!" He felt his voice splinter, torn between rage, frustration and grief. "You don't know – you – _things have_ _happened!_ Luna's dead, Ron's gone, they died just minutes ago in a battle by the lake -"

At that the Professor's eyes closed and he let out a low moan, Harry hurtled on seeking any advantage, "Snape kills you! _Why won't you listen?" _

Luna Lovegood was dead and Ron was … it was so horrible that it was easier to believe that Ron was dead too. Easier to believe that he had died very quickly, rather than was trapped underwater even right now, battling against hopeless odds, fighting to try and hold onto his last breath even as the stale air burned in his lungs.

Harry forced himself not to tip over into hysterical weeping. He only had minutes and he couldn't waste them. The Professor had told him that they were having this conversation in the five minute gap between him – his earlier self – having just hurtled from the office, and before they would meet up again in the Great Hall to go on their doomed mission. The time-turner would return him in five minutes: Harry had furiously tried to tear it from his grip to give himself extra, but it would not come loose.

But if he could just get the Professor to change what happened tonight, to _not_ die, to agree to alter history, then the rest of it could not have happened: Luna would not be dead, Ron would still be here.

Harry had told the Professor all that – well, shouted it at him anyway – and the Professor had closed his eyes and let out a grieving, shuddering sigh, but he would not agree to change time.

"_But they're dead. And you're going to die too!"_

"I am sure I shall, Harry. We all do in the end. It is how we meet it that counts."

"But you can save them!"

Professor Dumbledore closed his eyes again, "I cannot, Harry, I cannot alter the course of history."

"But you _can!_ You're murdered_ tonight._ It hasn't happened yet. We went to a cave -"

Dumbledore nodded: he knew they were going to the cave tonight, that was already his plan.

" – but it was a disaster! We didn't even get the proper locket -"

At that, Professor Dumbledore did blink. The Professor obviously hadn't anticipated the night would be so unrewarding for all its dangers. Harry thought he saw an edge and pressed on.

"You had to drink stuff from a font to get the locket. It was horrible, you didn't want to do it, it made you weep, it was like you were having horrible nightmares of awful things -"

"Ahhh," Dumbledore raised his head sadly. "The Draught of Despair … Yes, that does sound like something Tom would use."

Harry tried to shut out the Professor's sad tone. He didn't want the Professor to take it all so fatalistically. He couldn't _let_ the Professor take it all so fatalistically. The Professor had to be shaken out of his complacency!

He had to be _made_ to see how terrible it all was. He had to be made to see that he _must_ change time!

"You made me make you drink it! You ordered me to do it. I had to do it, even though it was killing you -" He felt his voice break and ruthlessly suppressed it. "_You've got to listen! _We can change everything. You're -" his voice fractured again, "- you're the only one Voldemort was ever afraid of. I _need _you. You have to come back."

"Harry, I can't change time."

"You _can _but you just _won't!"_

Dumbledore held his hand up for silence, but Harry wouldn't be stopped, "The school is invaded tonight. Malfoy lets the Death Eaters in -"

"Ahhh – so it went that far?"

Harry was momentarily aghast – he had forgotten that the Professor had known that Malfoy's task was to kill him but had done nothing to intercede with Malfoy all school year. "But you can stop it. You can stop it all from ever happening!"

The Professor's interjection was quick, incisive, "Are any of the school-children killed? Any of the Order?"

"No, it's," Harry had blurted his answer out before he could think, "it's just you! Don't you understand: _you get murdered!"_

"Harry, we have very little time and I need to tell you things -"

"We have all the time we want, we can change time. It's just a law against it – that's all. We can break it. We can change the future. I can tell you what happened and you can evade it. No-one will ever know that anything even changed – as far as they're concerned, nothing's happened yet. They won't ever know if it happens differently this time around. There's no reason not to do it! We can -"

"And did Draco kill me?"

The question was so incongruous that Harry felt as though he'd been hurtling along in a car when someone had whipped the handbrake on, causing them to squeal all over the road.

"_What?"_

"Did Draco kill me? When I am murdered, is he the one who kills me?"

"Of course he isn't! Killing you? - he didn't have it in him!" Harry abruptly realised that sounded like an insult to both Malfoy and the Professor and scrambled to rectify it. "Look, he's spent the last few weeks saving my life and not dobbing me in it! You offered him a deal to save his family and he wanted to change sides on that Astronomy tower -"

"Oh – the Astronomy tower? So that is where I die?"

Harry rode over the horrifyingly resigned tone and, frustrated and frightened, lurched about for something that would tip the Professor into seeing that he _had_ to change things.

"You make Malfoy a deal and he wants to take it. He wants to change sides. He lowers his wand against you. He isn't going to kill you – he never wanted to! When it gets to it, he knows he can't. But it's all too late. The Death Eaters come and -"

His voice broke: he, Malfoy, Ron, all of them – they all seemed so trapped in their fates.

"So, Draco did not kill me? I did hope he would not."

"Of course he wouldn't! He has you helpless. All he has to do is shoot – but he just talks and talks. He can't make himself do it. When you made him your offer, he started to lower his wand, it was almost a relief for him – he _wanted_ to stop!"

"And Draco has tried to help you since? So he has changed, or is at least trying to? So tonight does have an effect on him – the greatest effect I could have hoped for: the saving of a boy's soul. I think that is worth the price of an old man's death, don't you?"

"But it -" Harry heard his fractured voice become streaked with a frustrated laughter. This was absurd! It was - "It _wasn't _worth it. You _didn't_ 'save his soul'. His soul was already safe – because it turned out that he couldn't kill you anyway. He wouldn't kill you on the tower – he couldn't – no matter that the Death Eaters were trying to make him do it. You didn't need to die to save him – _because he didn't need saving!"_

"But he _did_, Harry -"

"_He didn't!"_ Harry now felt a blaze of half-laughing, half-shouting frustration - why wasn't he getting through to Dumbledore? He was making sense, he knew it. Why wouldn't Dumbledore _listen_ to him?

"Look – Malfoy _wants _you to stop him! He wants you to do it tonight, before it all goes too far. He said so. We were stuck in a bank vault together, he was practically crying – he couldn't understand why you hadn't stepped in and helped him when you'd known all along. He wants to change. He told me stuff there – trying to protect Neville, asking why hadn't you stopped him before it all went too far. But you could do it now. Why don't you just _stop_ him!"

"Because it's not up to me to stop Draco, the whole point is that Draco stops himself."

"But he'd stop himself now if you just went outside that office door, got him and stopped him! I can even tell you where he is – he's in the Room of Requirement!"

"But he would not stop himself now, Harry. He would not stop himself if I were to do as you say: I would stop him."

"But you stop him when you make your offer on the tower! Why can't you just make it now instead?"

"But don't you see, Harry? It was only when things got the killing point, the unavoidable killing point – no nonsense with wine or necklaces - that he learned that was not what he wanted. Only by coming to the very point of killing a person face to face, did Draco realise the limits of his morality. Realise that he could not do it. Were I to go and stop him now – he would always be chaffing, always fancying himself a killer: never changing towards some redemption."

"But that's just -! He -"

"Draco cannot be 'told' anything, Harry. Draco is the sort who can only learn his limits by experience, by tottering along the very edge of them, threatening to fall. Draco has to learn for himself. I could not simply teach him by telling him."

"Trust me," Harry's voice was hoarse. "Right now, he'd be quite happy to skip the lesson if he could just have you back!"

"Of course he would Harry – now. But only after he had learned. If he had not been at the very point of killing me, killing an innocent person, then he would not have learned that he was unable to do so. He wants me back now, precisely because he came so close to killing me then – so close, and yet chose to veer away."

What the Professor said made a horrid sort of sense but -

"_He wants your help!"_

"And he has it, Harry, he has the greatest help I can give him: I died to save him."

Harry felt as though he had been abruptly smacked to a stop, as though he'd been hurtling wildly along a blind corridor and then had been forced to a screeching halt by an unforeseen sharp drop, tottering, arms whirling, stomach sucking in, toes over the very edge as he flailed for balance.

He felt as though the Professor had cheated somehow: that he had known all along that the drop was there and had let him run on without warning.

But he couldn't just give in! There had to be a way!

"_You're just playing with words! _You could change time if you wanted to. You could change _history_ if you wanted to. You could stop it all. You can control the future, you just _won't!"_ He wanted to scream with frustration. "You had the time-turner all along. If you'd wanted to, you could have gone back and saved my mum and dad that night – you could still do it now if you wanted to!"

"I cannot, Harry. I cannot change history."

"Stop saying that, you _can_ but you just _won't!_ You -" he flailed about for some unassailable, crushing point that would make the Professor see it his way. "You changed time to save Sirius! I know you did. You and Hermione, you did it between you. You knew she was doing it, you practically _told_ her to!"

"I saved Sirius, Harry, as there was hardly any history to change – he had been Dementored only minutes. History had not moved on. In undoing his death, I was not undoing and re-stitching anyone else's life."

"You're just making excuses!" 

"I cannot and will not go back and avert the deaths of your parents, Harry. I cannot and will not avert the events of that night."

"You _can!"_

"And undo the fact that you vanquished Voldemort that night? Saved us for ten years? If your father had not been killed, Voldemort could not have got to your mother, if he had not killed your mother, he would not have been overcome by the rebound of his own spell when he attacked you. Without him being overcome, the whole of history would have been changed. He was winning up to that night, Harry. He was at his most powerful. Had he not been dispatched, he would have destroyed the whole world as we know it. The children you know at school – half of them would not have been born, and half the rest would have been killed. Remus would have been dead years ago. Draco Malfoy would have been brought up rendered a total, conscienceless monster, never to be recovered. The Weasleys and all those like them would have been interned or wiped out."

Harry got that tottering-on-the-edge, over-rotating, unbalanced feeling again.

"Fine! Then send me back so I land a few minutes before I took off tonight! That's all! I could save Ron and Luna. We can at least do that. Almost nothing's happened between now and then. It's just like with Sirius - I can save them without 'un-stitching' anything!"

"But something has happened, Harry: you have come here."

"But -" Harry almost wanted to laugh at the craziness of it, "- I would come back here whenever I got the time-turner! If I did it tonight or in six weeks time, it doesn't make any difference!"

"It will 'make a difference' if you are dead before you get the time-turner, Harry. Or if Severus is dead when you learn what I tell you."

Harry put his hands to his head and forcibly held back a scream.

"I understand that my brother, Aberforth, must have only just managed to give you the time-turner, as if he had managed it earlier, you would have set off sooner, so to speak. And am I correct in suspecting that Aberforth was alerted to your presence by events at the lake?"

_Events -?_

"Stop talking like that: they're _DEAD!"_

"But it brought you back here, Harry, so I could tell you what you need to know about Severus."

"What about -? _I don't care about him!_ He kills you. And if what you've got to say is that important, why didn't you tell me five minutes ago before I set off down those stairs!" He flailed an arm in the direction of the staircase down which 'he' had gone just minutes before. "For God's sake – why did you wait until you were dead? _Why have you left it all too late!"_

"Because to help protect his life, I could only tell Severus' secret when I knew I must, Harry, and I would only have to if I were dead."

Harry fought down a scream – why wouldn't the Professor see that this was all _stupid?_ "Snape -? That filthy - ! He was the one who -"

"Harry, whatever you think is so to Severus' detriment, I do not need to hear the details: you have already told me that he 'kills' me. Indeed, I already know the worst about him: I know that he betrayed your parents to Voldemort. You forget, I told you so mere minutes ago before you left this office. I know the worst about Severus, and I also know the best."

"I'm going to tell you everything I know! I am going to tell you and I _dare_ you not to use it!"

"I know Harry, hence I always intended to remove my memory of this meeting immediately upon your return to your own time: remove it to my pensieve and then destroy it there."

Harry was so breath-takingly enraged, that he roared out everything he could think of: about the box in his mother's grave –

"Yes, I know. It was left at Godric's Hollow. Severus buried it there to glean for it whatever magical protection could be got from your mother's love."

Harry gasped – all the secrets that had been kept from him! A glimmer of unwanted memory: _Dumbledore had a habit of being secretive Harry …_

"The cup!" he screamed, "It was in the Black vault! I got it when Malfoy and I were stuck in the vault!"

"Yes, when Draco tried to protect Neville, which is another reason why things ought to stay unchanged – that Draco is learning where his limits are and is taking great risks to stay within them."

"The missing Horcrux! It's a tiara! Malfoy said the unknown Horcrux was a tiara. That's why we were all at the lake – to trade information!"

At that, the Professor did look surprised.

"Ah! I had it all along and never knew … no wonder no-one could ever find out why she died when experimenting upon it. The Horcrux had been destroyed in the experiment. There was nothing to find …and all the time it lay twisted and battered in the storage provided by the Room of Requirement."

Harry juddered to a halt. He had seen that very tiara. One more Horcrux gone then … No need to look for that one …

"It killed an Unspeakable when she had been experimenting upon it." Dumbledore sounded almost apologetic. "There was one witness but she wasn't able to tell anyone quite what had happened, Harry …she was too young you see, only a child at the time …"

Staring at Dumbledore as Dumbledore stared up at him, Harry got a cold, clammy feeling …

"She was only six years old at the time, Harry. Even her memories of the event were confused."

Harry stared at Dumbledore.

It was Luna … the death she had seen had been her mother's …

Dreamy, odd, Luna – the craziest yet the sanest person he knew. And now she was dead. And it was unbearable. Because he only realised what he could have had by the very act of it having been taken away. Because weird, wise Luna …

He lunged for the door. He wanted to howl like a dog.

"I'm going to tell myself everything! If you won't change it, I will! I WANT A SECOND CHANCE! _I'LL MAKE IT TURN OUT DIFFERENT!"_

The door locked with a click at the wave of the Professor's wand.

Teeth set, Harry got both hands on the handle and yanked, it didn't open. Harry then had a foot against the door jamb and leant back, trying to lever the door open with all his strength.

"As a teenager Severus tried to brew up some Felix Felicis in order to, I believe, 'skew the odds'." The Professor paused. "He brewed it up incorrectly, either that or it was tampered with – I suppose that's always possible, after all, the young can be very thoughtless …"

Harry was now arching every muscle into opening the door.

" …and the result was a disastrously unlucky life."

Harry's grip on the handle snapped and he collapsed back, only just managing not to sprawl on the floor. He swiveled on the Professor. "He's not unlucky – he's evil! He loathed Sirius and my dad – he sneered that they couldn't even protect my mum!"

"Yes, Harry, but his greatest regret was not that he had endangered your father by telling Voldemort of the prophecy – his greatest regret was that he had endangered your mother."

There was a long, shocked silence and then Harry laughed. He remembered Hermione's statement at The Burrow: about how the Professor had been ill, old and losing his grip. He tried to swat aside the treacherous thought but couldn't: _he's turned into a batty old man._

"He _hated_ my mum!" Harry was laughing almost with hysteria now. "My mum was Muggleborn. I saw it in his own memory – _he called my mum a Mudblood!"_

"Yes, that was always Severus' worst memory, when for the first, last and only time he called your mother that name. He did that when she had been his friend."

Harry crunched to a halt … _"NO!"_

"She was a Muggleborn and he was a Half-blood, they had a lot in common. He used to go to your mother's house as a boy during the holidays and tell her everything he knew of Wizard lore. Oddly, your grand-parents quite liked him, though for some reason your Aunt Petunia thought he was an 'awful boy'."

_That awful boy …_

Of all the strange things: Harry was persuaded to believe Professor Dumbledore by something Aunt Petunia had said.

Harry felt almost in a fever. He felt ill. Snape? That filthy, foul, greasy -? His mother's friend? At her house? Talking to her? Swapping stories? _Her guide in her new world?_

"Severus held your mother in a great fondness, Harry, but after his mishap in his efforts to brew the Felicis, his bad luck began to bite and he and your mother fell out. Their friendship finally crashed that day by the lake when Severus said what he did: his worst memory."

Harry did not want to hear this. He bent over a chair, gripping the chair-back.

"After that, Severus' luck simply deteriorated: he fell in with poor company and became a devotee of Voldemort, partly out of bitterness, partly out of lack of options, and partly because if he were to be rejected, then he was determined that he would 'show everyone' how bad he could really be."

Dumbledore sighed.

"Of course, it all ended when he learned that he had betrayed your mother in relating part of the prophecy. Even as bitter and venomous as he was, there were places Severus would not go. And secretly he held Lily in such regard. Privately, she meant such a lot to him. I sometimes think he may have seen even more in her than there really was -"

Harry's guts clenched with cold resentment.

"- I feel she represented some last, redemptive vision of goodness, that if she would just have him, accept him, then it was proof to himself that he could not be so far flung into the darkness as he secretly feared. I don't think Lily is now real to him – perhaps she never was? Instead I think she is and was some almost abstract image of goodness …"

Harry's fist twisted the wooden chair-back.

"… He tried to reverse what he had done. He spied upon Voldemort – risking terrible tortures, doing anything he could in a desperate effort to avert the disaster he had set in train."

Harry was breathing heavily now, half sick.

"But despite all his efforts, she died. And to Severus' mind, your mother died because Sirius and James made a mockery of their responsibilities."

Harry drew a seething, livid breath.

"You see, Harry, Severus originally believed that Sirius was the spy. Then, when Severus found that Sirius had not betrayed them but had instead unintentionally handed them over to Peter Pettigrew, he despised Sirius for having failed to uphold the responsibility of Secret Keeper himself, and to Severus' mind, James was at Godric's Hollow but failed to stop her from being killed."

The chair-back now actually creaked under Harry's hand.

"Severus will always believe that had he been at Godric's Hollow, and not James, then he could have put up a better fight or realised earlier that they had to flee."

There was something almost sneering in Harry's voice. "And exactly how does Snape imagine that he would have been there?"

"Because he loved your mother, and could easily, in his dreams of another reality, imagine that he, and not your father, might have been there as her husband."

Harry's head whipped up and he hissed his words: "Stop it!"

"That was why he originally brewed and drank the Felicis which destroyed his life: he loved your mother – or fancied he did - and it was a desperate effort to get her to love him back."

"_Stop it!"_

"Severus loved Lily – as much as he could love anyone - he never loved anyone else, and then she died. And part of him knows that part of it was really his fault and he has to live with that every day. He also knows that when she died, if she recalled him at all, it was as someone who hated her, and now he can never have the chance to apologise and tell her how he truly felt."

"_Stop it!"_

"Do you recall how you have your mother's eyes in your father's face, Harry? Every time Severus sees you, he is plunged into the painful recognition that Lily chose James over him, and plunged into the pain of his role in what happened to her."

"_I don't want to hear this!" _

"Severus' actions leading to your mother's death, were the greatest regrets of his life. Since then he has waited and waited, steadfastly looking for the chance to bring down the creature who killed Lily Evans."

"Shut up!" 

"I knew it would be uncomfortable, Harry. But I do think you need to know. Severus is one of the most powerful opponents Voldemort could yet have. I do not want you to reject him."

"He shoots you with the Avada Kedavra! _He shoots you off the tower with it!"_

"Ahhh – Severus: still trying to the last. _Avada Kedavra_ doesn't work unless you truly mean it, Harry, it has a blasting effect, that's all. Surely you remember that from your own efforts with an Unforgivable upon Bellatrix Lestrange at the Department of Mysteries?"

"_He threw you off the tower!"_

"Perhaps he desperately hoped I would survive the fall, yet it would still look as though he had tried to kill me?"

"_The Avada Kedavra killed you!"_

"I doubt that, Harry. I rather think the fall kills me."

"_You could survive the fall! You're a great wizard!"_

"Not were I to be fatally weakened by the potion which I drank in the cave."

There was a horrible, humming silence.

It was like the 'close down' on Mrs. Figg's old-fashioned Muggle telly. The colour and sound snapping to a single white point of light as the set sang with a high electronic note before the final fade to blackness.

And then a crashing collage of memories: that the _Avada Kedavra_ was instant but on the tower, Harry had only been free to move many seconds after the _Avada Kedavra_ had hit – after the Professor had fallen, his death deleting the binding spell.

The fall had killed him …

That explained why Malfoy could not see Thestrals: he hadn't seen the Professor die, because the Professor had died on the ground and not on the tower.

Snape hadn't killed the Professor, the fall had – because Harry had weakened the Professor to the point where he could not survive it.

Harry became aware that the Professor was still speaking.

"I did not want to put that to you, Harry, but I must prevail upon you to trust Severus, and to that end I must make you understand that he did not murder me. I had already insisted he keep the Vow to complete Draco's mission so as to protect Draco. In effect, when I insisted he keep the Vow, and then later tonight when I insist that you force me to drink the potion, _I_ murdered me."

"No! I -! It was _Snape!"_

"No, Harry. The person who murdered Albus Dumbledore, was Albus Dumbledore."

Harry wanted to shout, but words wouldn't come, only roars. He began roaring out everything which had happened to him since the Professor's death: about love potion, Tonks, the Horcruxes, Malfoy. And even as he screamed it all out he could feel that tug at the navel and knew that as soon as he was gone, the Professor would remove any memory of this five-minute meeting and eliminate it – he knew it had been done, he had seen the burn-marks in the pensieve earlier …

Whirling unwillingly through time and space, screaming with rage as he went, he knew that the last thing he had roared had gone completely unheard by the Professor: about how it was that Dumbledore had been so concerned to save Malfoy from any taint of murder and yet, later that night, would order Harry to make the Professor drink the lethal potion.

He had been so concerned to save Draco Malfoy from the coils of murder, yet had plunged Harry into doing just the same. He had been at such pains to save Malfoy from being a killer, but he had almost casually made Harry into one.


	30. Chapter 30

Title: (Chapter 30)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 

**Chapter 30**

A spy in the Weasley family?

Malfoy felt as though he had unexpectedly missed the last tread of the stairs in the dark. He felt rather than heard Granger give the tiniest of hollow gasps next to him. Because that truly was shocking news. One of the Weasley family had betrayed -?

It was insupportable, it was unbelievable, it was -

Voldemort shifted to look over his shoulder at one of the many cloaked Death Eaters. He spoke as though making introductions at a church fete, or at a wedding-reception.

"Have you met Tanit Mortlake, Draco? Come forward, Tanit."

One of the figures demurely stepped forward and slipped her hood back from her narrow, thin, pale face, with her long, dark hair drawn tightly back in a chignon.

Next to him, he felt Granger tense, the tendons of her skinny little wrist tightening under him. But the revealed spy was almost a relief – the actual Weasley family had remained true to itself, at least. Even though they were now getting killed off.

Because even Malfoy recognised Tanit Mortlake, he had seen her at the Weasley Reception – the girlfriend of one of those ghastly twins. Was she the one who had blabbed on him being there? But then how could she be? She hadn't known about him being there in disguise and she hadn't seen him with Potter later.

Tanit Mortlake – the daughter of Jonas Mortlake – had been a spy for the Death Eaters. She had insinuated her way into the family as the perfect potential daughter in law: far better than any common little shop-girl or screechy Muggleborn. She had been let in, unquestioned even by Molly Weasley – who had then paid the ultimate price.

Malfoy resolutely did not look toward the broken figure on the floor.

He caught the sly, sideways look which Tanit Mortlake gave Voldemort, who in turn looked her over appreciatively.

Looked like Aunt Bellatrix's days as 'Top-Doxy' were well and truly over, then.

In the background, one of the Death Eaters shifted miserably and Malfoy knew it was her.

"Do you like her, Draco?"

Voldemort was indicating Tanit as though she were some prize he might yet bestow.

"Does it matter?" Malfoy then looked at Tanit Mortlake, flatly addressing her, "How did you manage it?"

Tanit looked toward Voldemort before answering, seeking permission to speak. Voldemort nodded.

Her voice was cool, elegant, patrician. She'd make rather a good Death Eater consort, actually. If a bit of a Lady Macbeth.

"Rather amusingly, I hoist Frederick Weasley on his own petard: I love-potioned him using his own products -"

At that, Malfoy felt Granger involuntarily twist next to him and he gripped her wrist even more firmly.

"- rather fitting, I think."

Voldemort laughed, as did many others. Voldemort became expansive, he could afford to be, he'd just gotten the box – whatever it was – the locket, Granger, and the Girl-Weasel without even trying!

"Let us have an unveiling of the Death Eaters' shall we?" Voldemort sounded almost jovial, "Let us show Draco just who we are …"

The arrayed Death Eaters drew back the hoods of their robes. Malfoy was not surprised by most of them - the Lestrange brothers, the horrid, giggling Carrows, Walden McNair who'd come to kill that annoying Hippogriff at school that time, Avery, Dolohov, Jugson, Mulciber, Rookwood, the thick and grunting Crabbe and Goyle, the progenitors of his school 'companions'.

He couldn't see Father.

Mother was there, though. His gaze flinched away from her because it gave him a sick, hollow, shamed feeling to know that Mother had heard him talking about … _pets_.

This was going to be The Night From Hell.

But at least Father wasn't there to have heard it too.

Aunt Bellatrix was there, as he had sensed she was, expression smudged with apprehension and concern. Snape was there too: dark eyes like shiny black glass, utterly impenetrable, his expression utterly still. It was impossible to see what he thought of the sobbing Girl-Weasel, Trelawney, of that stuff about Ron Weasley, of the seemingly-captured Granger …

And of the corpse of Molly Weasley lying slumped on the floor.

"Who did her?" Malfoy nodded dispassionately at the cadaver.

Over to one side, Tanit Mortlake bowed slightly, simpering, "I tricked them at the station and dragged she and the chattel to the Dark Lord." She almost bobbed a little curtsey to Voldemort. "Oddly, for a tedious house-wife, she put up quite a fight – once she realised I was threatening her child."

Yep, she would make an excellent Death Eater consort – Lady Macbeth alright. Determined to get to the top.

He'd have to do her, before she did him.

And now he really was thinking like a Death Eater.

"But our Dark Lord actually killed her," finished Tanit Mortlake, as though she thought that was the admirable part and didn't want to take undue credit.

"She was unwanted meat," intoned Voldemort.

Meat …?

God, he wished Father were here. Father, who would surely somehow tell him what to do.

But in the meantime there were others stepping forward, Death Eaters of whom Malfoy had not known.

The first shocker was a hard-faced, wiry-looking Auror whom Malfoy remembered from The Burrow.

"One of my Ministry sources - Dawlish," introduced Voldemort, "he was the one who informed me that you had been at The Burrow, Malfoy – that night when you got away with Potter."

Bugger – just when he'd been betting the leak had come from within the Order!

Then there was Ludo Bagman.

The ex-Head of Magical Games and Sports had played for England at Quidditch and had been the 'best Beater the Wimborne Wasps ever had'. With his round blue eyes, short blond hair and rosy complexion, he had the air of an overgrown schoolboy – an overgrown schoolboy with a paunch, a drink problem and gambling debts. Rumour was, he'd done a runner because he owed money to the Goblins – and they never had caught up with him. And that should have been a clue right there, because whoever got away from the Goblins, unless they had some really powerful friends?

The next few Death Eaters he saw were Ludo Bagman's brother, Otto,-editor of _Witch Weekly_ - and Cluff, editor of the _Daily Prophet_.

Well, you couldn't accuse the Dark Lord of not choosing wisely.

The next surprise was Florean Fortescue – of Fortescue's Ice-Cream Parlour. But Malfoy knew he should have seen that one coming, and in the back of his mind, he had. Florean Fortescue might very well have given Potter-prat ice-cream sundaes for free, but he also knew a worrying amount about the Burning Times and was greatly exercised by them. His shop had been wrecked upon his disappearance, a direct contrast to Ollivander's, who _had_ been kidnapped. Mis-direction. And also … he was an ice-cream salesman! For heavens' sake, why would the Death Eaters have wanted him? They hadn't … instead they had wanted him in position to help them grab Ollivander …

"Impressed, Draco?"

"Yes, actually. Where's Nott?"

He meant Theodore Nott's father.

"Still at Azkaban – what's left of him. He didn't want to rejoin us, he even raised the alarm against us during the break-out. Never the best-developed sense of self-preservation. His fervour for the cause did somewhat waver upon the birth of his son, a 'late gift' he called him."

_That and the fact that you did kill his wife …_

"At Azkaban, my forces killed him, of course."

Theodore Nott would be heartbroken.

"But he was of an age where he was no real use to me anyhow."

There was a strange, unco-ordinated shuffling from the rear of the room, where it was still very gloomy.

Unconcerned, Voldemort glanced toward it and issued an order, "Come," and Colin Creevey shuffled forth from the dark.

_CREEVEY?_

Malfoy felt Granger tense under his grip.

_He had always known that Creevey was a sniveling little ball of mucus, but to be a traitor -?_

Malfoy's blurt of bitter laughter stopped when he saw Creevey's strangely crooked shuffle, slightly limping, eyes blank, face a little _twisted_.

"How long has he been … how long …?"

"How long as he been Imperiused as ours? Mere weeks. Cuffe was able to gather him at the Weasley's benighted wedding-reception. He is useful though: a conduit to news at Hogwarts." Voldemort viewed Creevey as though assessing cattle, weighing up the price per pound. "Creevey was so keen to curry favour with the much more powerful Cuffe, wanting to feel safe and protected by his powerful 'friends'. Typical Mudblood filth, they always feel insecure among The People."

Malfoy felt Granger stiffen, her bushy hair now tickling the underside of his jaw.

Creevey was just a pawn, and one of the most basic sort. But chess-sets were made of pawns as well as kings. Even in cards, an insignificant two of hearts could bring down an Ace – if it could just find another deuce and become a pair.

From Creevey's throat came a sort of faint, whining plea, it sounded as though he were being half-choked. For a moment his eyes caught Malfoy's and there was a mute appeal of terrified despair.

Malfoy looked away.

Off in a far corner, Wormtail twitched.

Wormtail, like Creevey, was always squirming for the favour of the more powerful. Wormtail, un-noticed until then – always the least significant.

Well, as it turned out … not quite …

Because it was quite a night for shocks and it wasn't over yet …

Slughorn, sweating, swallowing, tugging at his collar, eyes blinking, hesitantly came forth.

And that really was a shock, because although Malfoy had long since known he was a Death Eater, it was unknown to the other Death Eaters that Malfoy knew … had known and had profited from it.

He had been blackmailing Slughorn.

And that they would have understood, had it simply been for his own material gain. But what they didn't know, and couldn't know, couldn't be _allowed_ to know, was that he hadn't just been blackmailing for his own advantage. He had blackmailed the Slug over Ginny Weasley for one thing – forcing her out of the Slug Club, away from any Death Eater connection – and worse, far worse, he had blackmailed the Slug into _leaving_ Hogwarts. At the start of this term he had sent him an Untraceable Note, though the Slug had surely known it was from him, telling him to get out or else be exposed. He had levered a possible Death Eater asset out of Hogwarts.

The Death Eaters neither respected Slughorn nor liked him: there were only so many times a person could change sides before even the Death Eaters grew disgusted. Indeed, McNair, laughing, insulting, twirled Slughorn's confiscated wand in his hand, much as Malfoy had done with Potter's that time in Umbridge's office. No - the Death Eaters neither respected Slughorn nor liked him, but they could still have used him at Hogwarts. So Malfoy levering him out? The Death Eaters could never forgive it because it was against their own cause.

Granger could get him killed. Slughorn could get him killed. He was walking a minefield.

He realised that Voldemort was still speaking.

" … like Creevey in that respect: frightened, always seeking to hide behind more powerful friends …"

Voldemort was talking about the sweating, scared, starting-eyed Slughorn as though he were not actually there.

" …he was an ex-Death Eater, one who fled the fold and now wishes to return for protection. Presumably now that Dumbledore is dead, he feels Hogwarts can no longer shield him …"

So at least Voldemort didn't know that Malfoy already knew that Slughorn was a Death Eater, nor that Slughorn had been forced out of the school by Malfoy himself.

So, one advantage: Slughorn had not told Voldemort that.

Not yet.

But was Slughorn even now calculating the benefits of speaking out? Would he at some point calculate that it was more profitable to speak than to hold his tongue?

"In any case, he brought with him peace-offerings."

Malfoy could not curtail his sharp, swift glance in the direction of the snuffling Ginny Weasley and the blank-eyed Trelawney.

"No, Malfoy, not the livestock …"

_And could he not talk about actual human beings like that?_

"… they were essentially delivered to us when Creevey found that the Weasley girl and Trelawney had fled Hogwarts and communicated to his controller, Mr. Cuffe." Voldemort surveyed Slughorn again, "No, Horace brought something far more valuable … gifts stolen from Potter and the Order."

He gave an airy wave of his wand and from a corner floated two objects to hover in the air: a battered tiara and the Hufflepuff cup.

" He lurked outside the Werewolf's office under cover of Concealment charm, was able to see where the cup was hidden after Potter and the staff discussed it, and then take them at his will."

_Lurking? I'll bet everyone and their uncle was out in that corridor. _But then in a school full of thick bastards, what could you expect? Quirrell had Voldemort growing out the back of his head for a year and nobody noticed. There's a huge Chamber with a Basilisk and no-one can find it. An Auror's kept locked in a trunk for a year and – and they actually _hired _Lockhart! Being complacent and too stupid to check the corridor during a top-secret conversation? Par for the course!

Malfoy forced his face into a mask of indifference. The Night From Hell? He was going to need a whole new set of descriptors for just how crappy this was turning out to be.

"As to the tiara, Slughorn has many friends in the Ministry and knew what had been found with the Longbottom boy and that it had eventually been sequestered by Dumbledore. When he overheard some fantastical tale involving Longbottom, he went in search of the tiara and found it in the Room of Requirement."

Some fantastical tale? Had they mentioned him telling Potter? If so, Slughorn knew even more things against him.

"It is the remains of the Ravenclaw tiara -"

Ravenclaw tiara? But of course, what else could it be. A tiara was a female thing, and Voldemort already had the cup for Hufflepuff, so the tiara had to be Ravenclaw.

"I hunted it down in the possession of the Meadowes family – descended from Ravenclaw herself. I murdered the tiresome Dorcas Meadowes to get it. Conveniently she – another Founder descendent – was thus the generator of the tiara Horcrux."

So Voldemort now had the box, the ring, the locket, the tiara and the cup. He had the box and locket through horrible accident, but the tiara and the cup through dreadful design. Malfoy had driven Slughorn out of Hogwarts and given him nowhere to go other than to return to the Death Eaters - and to do that he had needed peace offerings to buy his way back in.

Malfoy had miscalculated horribly.

"He is that most piteous thing, or do I simply mean the most pathetic?" Voldemort surveyed the cringing Slughorn, "An old man who has had his share of life but who is so scared of dying that he would betray the young whose lives have barely begun."

Malfoy felt his jaw tense up - you can talk … 

An inconsolable sobbing could still be heard coming from the cage: Ginny Weasley. Voldemort turned his gaze to her and spoke with an almost bored tone, "Such a tiresome girl. But yet, still useful."

Malfoy drew breath to shout – _Potter's not interested in her!_ – but realised that he should not say anything at all: he should not attract un-necessary suspicion to himself and he definitely should not make statements to the effect that Ginny Weasley was useless as a hostage.

He had already made enough mistakes for one night.

"Because even if she proves worthless as something to hold over Potter -"

Malfoy stiffened.

"- she is still _young_ … she can still _serve_ …"

Malfoy tensed even further, because there was something horribly lingering about those words.

"…and so eminently_ corruptible_ … all that unwillingness to accept responsibility."

Voldemort looked across at Malfoy, "I can see into her mind you know – quite easily. Such a flagrant creature, no defenses, so unable to hide her needs. When we caught her she was lying to us at first, crying out that she wasn't the Potter-brat's girlfriend – that she wasn't even Ginny Weasley!" He gave a light laugh, "Now she is reduced to crying – that and, within her mind, lying to herself."

Malfoy watched Ginny Weasley cover her face with her hands as she instinctively tried to hide her eyes.

No use doing that here – you'll have to do better than that … 

"Look up at me …"

Ginny shivered with tears at Voldemort's command, shaking her head, hands still over her face. Voldemort turned fully to face Ginny Weasley and pointed his wand. "I said, look _up_."

Ginny gasped to attention, hands flying from her, wide-eyed with shock as a ruthless invisible force straightened her spine and lifted her chin, her blotchy, reddened eyes now undefended, Voldemort having easy access to her mind.

"She can hide nothing from me …" He drawled the words over his shoulder to Malfoy, even as he looked at Ginny with a dismissive amusement.

"_Ginevra_ – her given name? Such a wisp of a name …" He peered more closely within her and Malfoy could not avoid the comparison to an unpleasant child casually examining a worm on a pin. "You call yourself 'Ginny' because you secretly loathe your name, don't you? A silly, boring _girl's_ name." Voldemort's voice was slow, drawling, droll. "You hate your name because you hate seeming weak. Because secretly, squirming, you know that you _are_ weak …"

Ginny gave a little, jerky cry at Voldemort's peeling words.

Malfoy almost winced, because he could have told her: Voldemort would only find it encouraging … he enjoyed the pain of others.

Voldemort gave a thin, pitiless laugh, enjoying her wretchedness.

"The only daughter in a family of six brothers …" His head tilted slightly as though peering around a corner within her, catching sight of another memory even as it tried to flee, "_Just the girl_ – ignored when not stifled, coddled when not disregarded, insignificant when not smothered with sudden careless affections which were just as easily taken away … _'nobody looked at me …I was just the girl …'_ Your brothers were fond of you but inattentive. They had _important_ things to do involving grazed knees and rough and tumble. You were _just the girl_ …"

Small, snuffling sobs now broke from her, little splashes of grief.

"And when you got to school … still no-one noticed you. Harry Potter, _Famous_ Harry Potter, didn't notice you even though he was your brother's friend. But then, you had … _the diary_ …"

Sobs broke more freely at that, the jerky little splashes becoming a rivulet now.

"Oh come now, _Ginevra_, don't cry. Don't you remember the diary?" Voldemort gave a mocking laugh, because of course she did, he knew she did, he could see it. The details of her shameful memories were feeding him, strengthening him, "_I was like a friend in your pocket _…"

The cries grew louder at that.

"And then the attacks started – the Basilisk."

The weeping became unconstrained. Voldemort's lipless mouth stretched wide in an avaricious grin, savouring the taste of misery.

Malfoy seethed with frustration: if she couldn't shut her mind, could she just shut her mouth? She was just _giving _stuff to Voldemort!

Voldemort's voice was almost caressing now, "Oh come now, _Ginevra_, let us have no self-deceptions here, not about the Basilisk … the truth is inside you, even though you try to hide from it," a final bubbling of glee, "_- you were setting it on people!"_

And at that she cried a ripple of sobs.

"I can see into you Ginevra." Voldemort's voice held a chiding, almost sing-song note, "Deep-down, you know it's true."

Ginny Weasley's response was a weak, weeping moan as she shook her head.

"You opened the Chamber of Secrets. You strangled the school roosters and daubed threatening messages on the walls. You set the serpent of Slytherin on four Mudbloods, and the Squib's cat … Of course, you didn't know you were doing _at first_ – but, then, you did know."

Malfoy slid a horrified glance over to Voldemort - _none of that was true, was it? _

"Oh? What's that you are thinking now?" Voldemort sounded as though he was actually listening to her thoughts, "_I was being possessed _… But, Ginevra, _someone_ had to speak to the snake to direct it – it is a creature which requires direction, and there was only you. I gave you the Parseltongue, Ginevra, but you picked the targets: people who annoyed Harry Potter and girls who were threats to you."

Wet wails now.

"Ah, Ginevra, a girl who can be so very selfish, petty, self-absorbed. A core of callousness within her when she wants her own way. But it's never her fault – oh no. _'The diary made me do it'_."

Voldemort was luxuriating in Ginny Weasley's almost bottomless stock of misery, fear, self-hatred and self-revulsion. With a cool deliberation, he was taking his pick from so many sweet choices.

"Your snappish temper born of a fear that others might be right to ignore you. Because what was there to notice? You knew that you were just a silly, boring _girl_."

Ginny dissolved into wails.

Within him, Malfoy felt the slimy slither of an emotion he had never cared for: pity.

Voldemort turned his destructive, corrosive energies toward another victim: Hermione.

Malfoy stiffened as Voldemort's sly, slithering gaze ribboned toward her.

"And aaah, but the devious, manipulative, deceiver herself …"

His exhalation was almost a savouring sigh, anticipating the delights of her guilt. Malfoy knew he was going to revel in it. In that and everything else Hermione Granger had locked away in her head – everything she knew about him, about giving up Tonks, about his warnings on Longbottom, about tossing his luck to the Weasel. Granger was going to crack! She was going to -

But both he and Voldemort had reckoned without the strength of feeling of the shivering, hot-eyed, glaring girl. Because she wasn't shivering with fear or self-pity, but with rage and grief and righteous anger; mouth permanently on the edge of a grief-stricken, shivering snarl.

Hermione Granger's deepest secret had always been that she was afraid. She was afraid of failure. She was afraid of the wizarding world finding her wanting. Afraid of the world into which she had been plunged, aged 11, without warning or history or family or friends, armed and shielded only by the titanium caliber of her intellect. And that was the one thing that she, the Muggleborn, felt she could point to in order to vindicate her existence in the wizarding world: her cleverness. And so her hand had always been first up in lessons, her essays were always the longest, her marks always the highest. Frightened, she had sought approval with continual displays of cleverness.

A desperately cavorting court jester who did not even know any jokes.

But for this one night only, grief and outrage had burned out all her fear. For this one night only, Hermione Granger was not afraid of the dark.

If the Death Eaters had known anything of her Muggle heritage, they would have recognised in the tilted chin and hotly glaring eyes the unspoken challenge … _Bring it!_

And Voldemort did, and then tried to disguise his searing pain as he mentally flinched back – because her rage and grief and righteous anger were not born of self-pity or self-justification, they were born of _love_.

For as much as she knew, she had seen Ron Weasley die that night in an effort to stop Voldemort, and she wasn't backing down now.

Standing so close to her, her wrist now gripped so tightly that he felt as though his hand was actually melding to her, Malfoy knew that Voldemort had somehow been beaten back by the emotive, simmering Granger. Voldemort was hiding it well from all others, but he had been beaten back.

Malfoy blinked, maybe Aunt Bellatrix had been wrong after all, maybe it wasn't better to 'feel nothing'?

But Granger was still a danger to him, she was so highly-wrought that she could snap at any second and say things that would get him killed. She'd seen Ron Weasley bent and broken by the Inferi, she'd seen that little Ravenclaw slashed to pieces, and Voldemort was now toweringly angry at her. She was more of a danger now than ever. If Voldemort tried to kill her now, then Malfoy knew he should let him! It would be a good move for him!

Voldemort raised his wand to Granger –

- and Draco Malfoy stepped almost casually in front of her.

An accident. A mis-step. A misfortune of timing. An inadvertent happenstance. Certainly nothing for which Malfoy could be _blamed_.

Voldemort's raising arm swept past Hermione in an arc of movement as though he'd never intended to shoot at all. Then he recovered, quickly turning to an area where he could boast, covering his flustered reaction.

He expounded his plan.

"Tonight, my Death Eaters, will be a great night in our history. From this night forth, we will move toward victory, we will re-set the calendar so that this night is the beginning of history, there will be a new time, there will be a fresh start -"

Malfoy steeled … _And here we go. He's cancelling the calendar and naming days of the week after himself? He's lost it!_

"– for tonight I have assured my eternity. Now I simply need find a way to enter Hogwarts and use the weapon there to seal our victory."

_Weapon?_

"The weapon bequeathed by Slytherin himself, the weapon hidden in the Chamber of Secrets for a thousand years, the weapon which will annihilate all those who are unworthy to be called wizard …"

_Alrighty – now that could be a bit of a problem._


	31. Chapter 31

Title: (Chapter 31)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 

**Chapter 31**

Landing from his time-turner Portkey journey, Harry went wild.

Flailing and off balance, he lurched and took a wild step back to steady himself - and his foot trod heavily on something soft and yielding which shifted under him.

He flung an alarmed look over his shoulder and found that he had just trampled on Luna Lovegood's lifeless arm.

He flung his head back and screamed.

Aberforth Dumbledore stepped back in alarm. All he knew was that he had run up to the lake, found the fallen Tonks and that blond girl who was surely …sleeping? And a lone, blank Harry Potter who had momentarily disappeared and now had come back: blinking in and out of existence!

Thrashing and wild, Harry became vaguely aware that he was still holding the paperweight time-turner: he furiously shook it, trying desperately to get it to reactivate, either to go back to the Professor and somehow _make_ him change time or to squeeze just a few minutes more out of it – just the few minutes it would take to go back and change history for Ron and Luna.

He hadn't even had time to say goodbye to Ron and then there was Luna – _why hadn't he said something?_ _WHY HADN'T HE SAID SOMETHING?_

But nothing happened and, sobbing with rage now, he knew the time-turner was quite defunct.

Away to his left he glimpsed Aberforth Dumbledore staring at him, eyes wide and unblinking, backing off slightly, caught between concern and trepidation at Harry's wild behaviour. Harry swiveled, sobbing and raging, and flung the time-turner at him hard so that it bounced off even as Aberforth instinctively shied away, wincing and flinching.

"Go on. Just like your brother! Go on. Stand there - _and do nothing!"_

People raced up about him: villagers running, panting to a halt, hurrying up to see the commotion by the lake. Some of them had their wands in their hands, all of them now nervously jerked back from the wild, shouting boy. Many flicked each other uneasy looks: they'd all heard rumours about how 'funny' Harry Potter could be, the _Daily Prophet_ had been full of it for years and there wasn't any smoke without fire, was there?

People were skittering about, craning and peering anxiously around him: was that two people lying on the floor? Wasn't one of them that pink-haired Auror who'd been hanging about the village for the best part of a year? And was that other, smaller, blond-haired -?

"Good God!" a man shrieked, looking up from Luna's dead body, "_someone get a medi-wizard!"_

Harry could have told him: it was all far too late for that.

Standing by the lake, screaming, sobbing and swearing, he'd lost Ron, Luna had died, he'd lost Hermione and, in a horrible way, he'd lost Dumbledore.

He'd lost not just the man, but worse, his faith in him.

Sobbing and wet-faced, he snarled and prised a rock out of the beachy earth and, holding it over his head like a football, he hurled it into the lake: a furious, frantic, futile gesture of revenge and challenge against the Inferi which he alone knew were in it.

It hit with a mighty splash and spread heavy ripples – and a small, still-rational part of Harry told him that narking off a hundred Inferi was not a good idea.

The villagers were fearful, apprehensive, but puzzled even as they held back, some of them reaching out with tentative hands - but not quite touching him.

Harry flailed and sobbed, driving anyone away if they came too close.

He wildly hurled another, smaller, rock at the lake but then … collapsed, falling to his knees, dirty hands over his face, face mucky with tears and grime and … he simply wept.

Because Ron was gone and Luna was dead but he'd lost the locket so … it had all been for nothing.

People were running up from the village all the time. There were whispered voices, "Someone call the Ministry … there's been a Death Eater break-out from Azkaban tonight too -" people started – "it's just been on the wizard radio …"

Harry let it wash over him. Break-outs? He did not care. Call the Ministry? Let them.

He had failed utterly.

And then he felt tearfully angry about Snape. How _dirty_ it was. How _dare _he! The thought of the vile greasy thing and his – and his _mum!_

Tonks moaned on the ground.

"The Auror's coming round," someone whispered, "she can tell us what happened. She can take care of the Potter boy."

Harry would have laughed if he hadn't been crying: Tonks wasn't the solution, she was the problem!

People started to help Tonks up and Harry knew he'd have to do something about her in case she was somehow still Imperiused, but the villagers would get in the way and think he was crazy and –

Tonks went down again, smacked hard on the head by the heel of a shiny, ruby-red, high-heeled, strappy sandal.

Madame Rosmerta had clobbered her with her shoe.

"Well, that's that then!" she announced, head tossing back adamantly before she burst into tears. "She robbed me!" she cried to the shocked villagers. "She robbed a locket off me tonight. Knocked on my door, came into my flat, then tore it from around my neck! Look!" She threw her head back and yanked her collar down, baring her throat where an ugly red welt ran where the chain had been pulled.

Harry had a vague recollection of one of Ron's statements: that some 'bint' would be running about with the Slytherin locket, having bought it off Mundungus in a pub. He had been right: Mundungus had sold the locket to Rosmerta. Tonks had questioned Mundungus at Azkaban, and Harry bet that Dung had told her he had sold the locket to Rosmerta, then she had lied to the Order and had gone to nick the locket herself. Harry had seen Tonks at Rosmerta's door after all.

She had also been at Azkaban at about the time of the break-out. Had she even been involved in that too?

Falling to his knees, he began helplessly laughing even though his eyes were still streaming with tears: it was all so futile. Everything they had done had gone so _wrong_ …

Then Professor McGonagall's screech could be heard as she came panting up with Neville and, oddly, Theodore Nott.

"Harry? Harry Potter? What on earth has been going on?"

Harry lurched to his feet, _"RON AND LUNA ARE DEAD!"_

Neville took a step back, horrified. Nott looked about twitchily as though someone would surely contradict 'that nutter Potter'.

"There are Inferi in the lake! Tonks! She's Imperiused to act for Voldemort. Rosmerta – tell Madame Rosmerta that she's not guilty … and it was that tiara …"

Harry was aware that he was making no sense but suddenly he couldn't bear to speak more. He had to get away now. Face wet, throat thick, nose snotty, arms and legs pumping, he escaped and ran for a long time before flinging himself in the dirt of the pine woods, howling, his hands to his face, drawing great, wet, shivering breaths.


	32. Chapter 32

Title: (Chapter 32)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 

**Chapter 32**

_Annihilate all those unworthy to be called wizard?_

Malfoy felt Granger's head jerk up at Voldemort's words. He knew she'd read _Hogwarts: A History_, the same as he had. He recalled the lesson on the Chamber … _The heir alone would be able to unseal the Chamber of Secrets, unleash the horror within, and use it to purge the school of all who were unworthy to study magic._

Voldemort laughed.

"Oh, I know that there are those of you whose blood may not be of the very purest, but be assured it will only annihilate those of no wizarding blood at all. During his time at the school, Slytherin built the Chamber as a defense against persecution and witch burnings. Those oh-so-charming tales parents tell their children about Wendelin the Weird and her Flame Freezing Charms? Those tales are designed to make comic a fear that is very real: that if you but take away the wand, the flames burn. There was a reason Salazar felt as he did about the Mud-born filth."

Malfoy could practically feel Granger's eyes narrow.

He squeezed her wrist – _say nothing! _

"I found the Chamber and then, upon my travels, I read the Chronicle of Slytherin in the Great Repository at Durmstrang -"

Gasps were heard.

"- wherein Salazar wrote of the weapon in the Chamber. I tried to return to the school of course in the guise of a teacher, but I was thwarted by that now dead fool, Dumbledore."

At this, the Death Eater gazes turned to Snape, who had remained silent all through: he had been Dumbledore's killer, to him should go the approval. But unlike Tanit Mortlake, he did not even acknowledge it. Instead, he spoke.

"The weapon is not the Basilisk?"

"Oh no, that creature simply guarded it. The weapon itself, is something far worse."

"You'll never get into the castle."

Malfoy was shocked to find that the speaker was himself.

He felt Snape flick him a glance.

Voldemort turned slyly toward him, "You think not, Draco? Possibly there will be difficulties – we have not yet found an unsecured access route. But I do have an advantage at Hogwarts in any case," he turned and nodded, "thanks to my friend, Jonas Mortlake."

Mortlake bowed deeply.

"But …" That hesitant squeak was Wormtail. His voice was actually trembling. "But I thought you had to wait to kill Harry – Harry Potter?"

There was a pause and Malfoy wondered if the alarmed and squeaking Wormtail was actually going to be killed on the spot, but then Voldemort laughed and, a few seconds behind, as though having been given permission, laughter rose from many others present.

"Oh, Wormtail, I had forgotten, you were not attendant at tonight's earlier festivities: too busy cleaning in the kitchen."

Wormtail: always a disregarded servant.

Voldemort turned back to the cage and pointed his wand. For a second Malfoy almost stepped forward, thinking he was pointing it at Ginny Weasley, but then Trelawney jerked to attention, eyes glassy, mouth drooling slightly.

Malfoy looked sharply away from the drool.

Trelawney was upright but only like a marionette is upright: she was vertical but somehow _slack_ – as though held up by strings which might be cut at any moment.

Voldemort jabbed his wand at her and she began to speak in a low, droning, toneless voice. Voldemort smiled and waved his wand slightly, as though she were a choir and he the conductor.

"_The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches … born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies … and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not … and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives … the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies …"_

Malfoy did not even allow himself to blink as he felt Granger take a seething breath next to him. Earlier tonight, Voldemort had clearly found a way to squeeze the prophecy out of Trelawney, this was just a repeat performance.

But all that stuff – about marks, powers, and all that talk of others? How many 'others' had there been? And how did they relate? What did it all mean?

Malfoy was someone who used ambiguity as a tool and so he was very aware of when it was being used against him.

That prophecy was a morass of shaded meanings.

"You see?" Voldemort laughed to nobody in particular, "The meaning is quite clear! It is all about Potter. He was born at the correct time and between them both his parents thrice defied me at Godric's Hollow on the night I killed them. I did, unfortunately, mark the squealing brat: I gave him that scar. He did, disgustingly, have a power of which I knew not: his mother's love. And _'either must die'_? He did kill me. However, he killed but one of my lives and I returned. I do not need to kill Potter before I make my move. I can see now that he has been a pointless diversion all along. Now that I know the wording of the prophecy, I can see clearly that it holds no portents for the future – because it is referring to events which have already happened! The actions of the prophecy began and ended that night at Godric's Hollow. There is no longer any danger. I was vanquished but survived and returned, stronger and more terrible than ever before. I do not need to kill Potter. I _shall_ kill him, I shall take great delight in killing him, he shall yet make a Horcrux contribution – but I do not _need_ to kill him before I rise!"

No-one said anything. If they had any comments upon Voldemort's interpretation of the prophecy, they didn't dare make them: didn't dare to or didn't _care_ to.

Malfoy wondered at one thing though: if he didn't need it right now to top Potter, why was Voldemort still stroking that golden box like a little girl with a kitten?

Trelawney drooped again, her marionette strings dropped by a bored hand. Her abruptly slackened posture drew Voldemort's attention back to her. He perused her even as he now addressed his words to Malfoy.

"Shall I give you a display of how I intend to access Hogwarts, Draco? A display to you and to all others here? Yes … I think I shall."

Voldemort gestured openly to Mortlake. Evidently the Mortlake family were in favour tonight. Should the Death Eaters rise tonight, then the unpleasant Tanit Mortlake would be considered a Dynastic match by many families.

Malfoy wondered what his father might think, where he here.

Jonas Mortlake cleared his throat. "As you all know, I have long since had a reputation for being skilled in the area of mutation-magic, of splicing together magical creatures to a desired effect. At our Dark Lord's behest, I bent my efforts to creating something never known before: a creation with mind-affecting properties, inducing psychotic behaviour."

Malfoy reckoned it was a fair bet that a good number in the room didn't have a clue what Mortlake was on about. Despite the dreadfulness of the situation, it amused him to see that most were nodding thoughtfully anyway.

"It triggers violent impulses. It works best upon the immature, upon children, though not all are susceptible to it of course as some have wills which are too strong. But with those whom it does affect, it triggers violent impulses against those the child feels are thwarting it. It triggers rages against parents, teachers … other children who disagree. There have been a few test cases: some among you may recall the incident of two years ago, of the little boy who attacked his grandparents, killing them? That was a prototype. After such successes, we went into mass production. With the help of Mr. Cuffe's promotional skills we infiltrated the weapon into almost every home in the land which had a child – Hogwarts is a'flock with them. They are, of course, Pygmy Puffs."

There was a pause and then a smatter of nervous laughter, as though people were so shocked at the suggestion that such a trivial, idiotic-looking thing could be dangerous that they couldn't believe it. Ginny Weasley gasped and tried to step away from the Puff in the cage with her, but she only stepped backward into the slack Trelawney and shivered with revulsion.

With her in the cage, 'Arnold' chose that precise moment to squeak.

The nervous laughter tittered at that, but Draco Malfoy was beginning to have a very bad feeling … violent impulses against those whom the child feels are thwarting it? It triggers rages against parents, teachers … other children who disagree? Ginny Weasley had been one of the few last year with one of those bloody Puff-things, and she had been hexing people left and right, snapping, yelling at her brother … and riding her broom into people at high-speeds.

Malfoy felt Granger take a sharp breath next to him, his own spine stiffening so much that he felt it might snap.

Something awful was going to happen. He knew it.

Mortlake's mouth tightened: evidently he didn't take to even the possibility of being laughed at. Voldemort made a soothing, conciliatory gesture, "Calm yourself, Jonas. It is hardly surprising people are resistant to the idea as the creatures look so unthreatening and harmless. After all, you designed them that way: precisely so no-one would suspect. To prove your case, I think it would be best if we were given a display of their powers."

Without any preamble, Voldemort turned and coolly pointed his wand at the cage which contained Ginny Weasley, Professor Trelawney and the chirruping, skipping, 'Arnold': _"Deliriens."_

Had the spell-giver been anyone other than Voldemort, Malfoy was convinced that after about three seconds the room would have slid into growing laughter because … nothing happened. Malfoy's gaze darted to Voldemort, but saw that he was completely sanguine at the seeming lack of immediate reaction, and then to Mortlake who was quite cool at the same.

And then he knew that they had been expecting this – this 'time-lag' – expecting it because they had clearly seen it before. If this was not normal, then Voldemort would be angry and Mortlake would be terrified. He knew then that both Voldemort and Mortlake had witnessed quite a few 'prototype exercises': they must have done in order to know what to expect. He abruptly recalled a small _Daily Prophet_ report on that little girl who had won a Puff in a contest … her parents had died in a grisly 'accident'. What had really happened there …?

In the library of his grandfather's old house, he saw it for himself.

The Puff silenced its habitual, irritating chirping which was co 'cute', it stopped its typical bouncing about which was so 'sweet' and, slowly, turned to zero-in its gaze upon the now large-eyed Ginny Weasley. She was backing away from it as far as she could, heading shaking to and fro, a silent, rejecting 'no', staring at it as though it were a knife pointed at her.

The Puff's attitude was so still, so focused, so at odds with its usual 'endearing' behaviour, that it seemed sinister.

And then it sprang, catapulting at her: arms flexed to grip, fingers clutching like claws, lips drawn back, mouth suddenly full of teeth, eyes two glaring points of manic intent. It leapt at her head and shoulders and, hissing, quickly entangled itself in her hair.

She squealed in panic, stooping and twisting, hands thrown up, trying in vain to throw it off – and then it bit her.

She gave a sharp high cry at that. So panicked that she was unable even to form words. She could only scream, and then worse … over seconds, the screaming shaded into a horrible, cracked, jerking laughter. Her hands were in her hair now, but there was no effort to throw the Puff off, instead peal after peal of wild laughter tore out of her.

Head thrown back, neck stretched, mouth open in a rictus, fingers in claw shapes, she looked like a theatre mask of 'madness', some cave-drawing icon of insanity.

"I always find this part interesting," mused Voldemort, "I always wonder if they are being overwhelmed by some alien personality or instead being stripped back to some primitive core of true their selves."

Malfoy felt cold, clammy. They? How many times had Voldemort done this?

And then the crying started.

As her screaming had skin-crawlingly given way to laughing, the laughter was cracking under some internal pressure and was being interspersed with sobs.

Malfoy looked on, horrified; even the tittering Death Eaters had fallen still – none had seen this before. And then …

Ginny jerked to a stop, grunted, roared with rage, and swung a balled fist straight into the unprotected face of the passive, limp, defenceless Trelawney.

And then kept on swinging it.

Unable to stop himself, Malfoy's head instinctively snapped back as though he were the one being hit.

Horrible cracks of bone and the snap of splitting flesh as Ginny Weasley's tight, angry fists smashed repeatedly into Trelawney's face. And then her teeth ripping in as she lunched herself at the aged Professor's throat. Then her hard, angry feet stomping at the much older woman's reedy knees shins and ankles.

Next to him, Malfoy felt Granger shudder and gasp in horror and revulsion.

The drained Trelawney collapsed to her knees, one leg slipping out at a strange angle where the knee joint didn't seem to quite work properly anymore, and then it didn't work at all as Ginny swiveled and, snarling, stomped a foot down hard onto it.

Snap.

There had seemed to be no spark within Trelawney, but even a mindless creature knows it wants to live, even the lowliest of creations crawls away from pain if it can. What was left of Sybill Trelawney made pathetic efforts to raise its forearms defensively over its face, a sleepwalker desperately trying to wake.

Ginny Weasley – if that was who she still was – reacted with a savage sneer, knocked the spindly limbs aside, and went for the throat: short, stubby, strong fingers snatching at the loose, scrawny, wattled neck and wrapping brutally about, squeezing with a now frenzied energy.

Malfoy wanted to scream but his voice was blocked in his throat.

He knew that five years earlier the possessed Ginny Weasley had strangled the life out of the Hogwarts roosters, and he had tried so hard not to imagine it. Tried not to imagine her kicking her way into their chicken run, smashing the mesh door down with her feet, then cornering the birds there, grabbing at them, feathers all over the place, beaks and talons hysterically lashing as the birds struggled to live. Wings broken as she grabbed at the birds randomly: snatching, grabbing and gripping, pinning them down as her fierce little fists grasped and squeezed.

He hadn't wanted to know any of it, because Ginny Weasley – _his _Ginny Weasley – could never have behaved like that, no matter what.

But she must have been down in the dirt, one knee on the body of a bird, crushing its ribs as she pinned it's screaming form down and throttled it. Short, meaty little forearms pumping, sleeves pushed back, effortfully squeezing the life out of the struggling animals.

Ginny Weasley had murdered the roosters with her bare hands.

One after another after another.

She must have been grunting with the effort, gleaming gaze unblinking, mouth open with a trace of drool, lips drawn back from bared teeth in a low, purring snarl. He knew she must have looked like that, behaved like that, because now, right in front of him, she was doing the same thing to a human being.

Prone, Trelawney wheezed and choked, eyes bulging, lips turning blue, terrible wet gasping sounds breaking from her as she was garroted by a Ginny Weasley who pinned her down by kneeling with one knee on her chest. Trelawney's rolling eyes ran with tears, mouth drooling, unable to swallow, she was having the life choked out of her by a grunting, growling Ginny Weasley who savagely gripped her, squeezing her by the throat.

A horrified Draco Malfoy made an involuntary step forward, but from the corner of his eye he saw his Aunt Bella sharply shake her head, eyes wide in a panic: _do nothing!_ Simultaneously, Snape shifted abruptly as though to intercept Malfoy should he move further. Both Bellatrix and Snape caught each other's actions – actions intrinsically against the will of Voldemort. Each had ammunition against the other, but neither did a thing to report it.

Loyalties were beginning to shift into their final positions.

Frozen into inaction by sheer horror, Malfoy could do nothing. Because of course, Aunt Bella and Professor Snape were right: there was nothing to be done. Malfoy would have to Stun Ginny Weasley to stop her and even then it might not work – and how would he explain it all to Voldemort?

Ginny Weasley was twisting the life out of a helpless human being and there was nothing she or the horrified Draco Malfoy could do about it.

The aged Professor was shuddering now: the body's last, instinctive effort to live even though it was hopeless. And then there were just innocuous cracking noises – small sounds – the splinter of tiny bones, the spine breaking, an all-over trembling and juddering of Trelawney's body, her self dying but each individual part and cell trying still to live.

Snorting and breathing heavily through her nose, Ginny Weasley jerked her hands back and the still shivering body fell to the floor, where the feet kicked faintly as the last of Trelawney's life ebbed away, life leaving her completely with the gush of mucus and fluids as sphincters let loose in death.

The sharp tang of seeping urine filled the library.

Voldemort looked simply bored, waved his wand and issued a silent _Scourgify_ and the stench faded.

Voldemort was evidently quite used to dealing with the messy aftermath of untimely deaths.

But Ginny Weasley was not.

As Trelawney's hot urine splashed over her shoes, as she stood in a puddle of leaking fluid, Ginny Weasley seemed as if to wake up, to come out of some daze, face clearing of it's rictus, blinking. She brought her hands up to her face, as though to examine them, turning them over to look at the palms and then their backs, staring at them as though she didn't quite understand that they were part of her.

And then she started screaming.

And didn't stop until she was slumped in a corner of the cage, legs kicking, head thrown back, shameless in grief. The full weight of her actions pressing down and crushing her, whilst Voldemort stood utterly indifferent.

He simply held the battered tiara in his hand, absently fingering it whilst viewing the sobbing girl speculatively. With a smug smile he floated the damaged diadem across to her and it settled upon her head.

Ginny Weasley was finally wearing a tiara, much as she had wanted to back in the kitchen of The Burrow.

"She has been blooded. A young Pureblood virgin? I will have issue with her -"

Malfoy shivered, a fine wind rippling momentarily over still water.

"– she is an untouched Pureblood. Her offspring will undoubtedly be my progeny. And at least she isn't a Ravenclaw, there's always that to be said." Voldemort snorted, "Rowena Ravenclaw! Her whole house so arrogant – yet she was a Mudblood!"

_Ravenclaw – a Mudblood? _

Malfoy blinked but felt Granger actually jolt in his grip at the news, head jerking up suddenly, staring at Voldemort.

Voldemort was sneering ever onward, "Ravenclaws pride themselves, yet they are descended from filth! So conceited of their intellect – they are but peasants!" He laughed – that horrid, high note. He turned back to the distraught Ginny, "She finds me repulsive now, but on our wedding night I do not believe she will find me so very repugnant." He laughed as though at a private joke, "After all, a man can change."

Ron Weasley had once said that it would be a time to remember if he ever saw a Weasley wearing a thing like The Burrow tiara. He'd been right. Molly Weasley – the corpse on the floor – had said that Ginny would wear a tiara on her wedding day. She'd been right, too.

Hermione shifted in Malfoy's grip; she had not said a thing so far. As she moved slightly his grip on her wrist readjusted, revealing her skin where he had grasped her. The bruises of his panicked, convulsive grip were already blooming on the pale of her inner wrist.

She'd had three boyfriends, but Draco Malfoy was the only lad who'd ever left an impression on her.

"She has killed," mused Voldemort of Ginny, "it's always revealing for a person to view the darkness within them." He tilted his head, viewing her, "Yes, murder splits the soul, but there are parts of a person's soul which they do not need."

The tiara was on Ginny's head, but the cup and now the locket hung in the air about Voldemort: his remaining two Horcruxes safe with him. Everything Voldemort needed in order to ensure his safety was there in the room … but by the same token, so was everything a person needed to kill him …

Malfoy took a shivering breath and felt himself straighten slightly.

In gathering the Horcruxes, Voldemort had forged a double-edged blade: one which could cut him even as he held it.

Malfoy frantically calculated: had anyone else realised that? Could anyone here be trusted to overcome their ingrained fear of Voldemort and actually _act_ when the time and the chance came? Could even _he?_

"And what is your choice, Draco?"

"What?" Malfoy blinked.

"Are you mine? After all, I still notice that you have not handed over the Mud-filth's wand."

Malfoy felt the abrupt tug of the Sectumsempra scar across his chest as he took a surreptitious, shocked breath – he was supposed to strip Granger of any defense?

"The Mud-filth's wand, Draco?" Voldemort persisted as he held out a hand for it – an elegant gesture despite the hand's burnt-looking skin.

Malfoy took in the silent, demanding motion, staring down at the steadily held out hand, open, palm-up, a gesture of imperious request.

_Granger's wand …_? But – but he couldn't _not_ give it up!

"Give me her wand, Draco. Surrender Hermione Granger."

xxx

Hundreds of miles to the north, Harry lay spent in the dirt.

He needed to think. He needed to talk. But he didn't have anyone because Ron was gone …but he had Hermione though, and even Malfoy in some strange way.

Hermione was with Malfoy … and he still had the two-way mirror.

It was always possible, wasn't it?

Wiping his face, rising to his knees, a horrible fluttering feeling in his chest and guts, he cast a quieting spell about him in the dark to limit the chances of any passing noise betraying his end of the mirror if Malfoy were somehow …in odd company.

He whispered wetly and shakily into the looking-glass,_ "Malfoy? Draco Malfoy?"_


	33. Chapter 33

Title: (Chapter 33)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 

**Chapter 33**

Surrender Granger's wand? Leave her with nothing? But how could he _not?_

Staring unblinkingly into Voldemort's face, Malfoy numbly reached into the pocket to where he had put Granger's wand. He jostled the flat disc of the two-way mirror that was also there, alarmingly it thrummed against his fingers for a second and he cut a sharp glance down at it, hoping Potter wouldn't take this inopportune time to mouth-off – because he was the kind of stupid git who would.

He cut an almost impossibly slanted glance downward and into what little he could see of the mirror, "Giving up Harry Potter's little friend eh?" He gave a coarse little half-laugh. "And before I've even had my wicked way with her, too."

Voldemort smiled, but then took the larch wand which Malfoy proffered, casually snapping it without particularly glancing at it.

Malfoy bit down on his inner lower lip, teeth tugging at it slightly.

Granger flinched but did not blink.

Malfoy could still feel the mirror thrumming in pocket - it really wasn't that selfish, inconsiderate berk Potter trying to get through at a time like this, was it? With the pulse in his throat thumping, he casually reached into his cloak pocket as though to simply re-arrange its contents into more comfortable shape and then surreptitiously shook the mirror slightly, giving it the finger while he was at it just in case.

"This is a momentous night, Draco. History will change tonight. You have brought me much," with an airy wave of his hand, Voldemort indicated the box, the locket and Granger, "but have you given yourself? Are you truly mine?"

_Uh?_

Worrying about Potter butting in with his infamously crap timing, Malfoy had momentarily forgotten about Voldemort's preoccupation with the abstract concept of 'loyalty'.

Malfoy never had gone much of a bundle on 'abstractions'.

Tuning back in, it was clear that Voldemort still hadn't totally bought Malfoy's explanations as to why he had come here and not gone to the Death Eater manor. It was clear there was still doubt over Draco Malfoy's ultimate loyalties.

"Prove your fealty to me, Draco."

Malfoy felt a shard of panic. _Prove? How?_

"The blood-stock has killed," with a backwards jerk of his head, Voldemort indicated the quietly sobbing Ginny, "she did it easily, are you saying you cannot? Yes, murder splits the soul, but just one killing? For me? It will only be a tiny crack …"

_What?_ Voldemort wanted him to prove himself by _killing_ someone?

Malfoy did not know what expression he had on his face, but he hoped against hope that he was not evincing any horrified disgust that might give him away.

_Feel nothing!_

"Just a tiny split, Draco … Your chance to confirm your loyalty," Voldemort slid a speculative glance over at Granger, "make the sacrifice."

_Dear God -?_ Granger was the expected hit? But, then again, why not? They had Ginny Weasley as a hostage, they didn't need Granger. And Granger had beaten back Voldemort which would have secretly alarmed him. And she was a danger to Malfoy anyway …

"A crack in your soul no wider than a hair's breadth, Draco …"

Malfoy caught his Mother's face at the very corner of his vision: mutely horrified, mouth open, eyes wide, infinitesimally shaking her head at him – _don't do it_ …

But if he didn't kill, he'd be too dead to save anyone else!

"The merest crack, hardly any damage at all …the minutest of fractures …"

"You want me to kill?" Malfoy shrugged as though it were of no account, a tyro Mobster dressed all in black about to make his first hit, the very picture of blasé. He was stunned at how controlled his voice sounded even when he was actually shaking inside. "Fine."

He raised his wand, took aim, and shot.

The victim gasped and their hands flew to their throat and their eyes bulged as a reverse-Anapneo choked off their air supply.

Malfoy hadn't gone for the Avada – he hadn't thought he could pull it off, and for so many reasons he had to succeed. Instead he'd gone for the Anapneo. A quick little spell which was well within his powers. The Avada? Flashy, a show of expertise, but un-necessary: there was more than one way to destroy someone.

Malfoy felt sound damp down about him, as though there was a play on the wizard radio but the receiver had not been tuned in properly. The room was surely growing noisy with the sounds of choking struggles and he could see the Death Eaters shouting cries of encouragement, but he could hear none of it. Sensory perception slid away. The gloom grew darker.

This wasn't going to be a fight to the death – nothing so unseemly. This was simply going to be a death.

There were wild lurches, tearings at the collar, splutterings, eyes watering, face already bright red; panicked, crazed eyes beseeched help from any there – but none came.

Malfoy relentlessly kept the spell on as the other collapsed to the floor, legs and feet kicking about, body jerking, head thrashing to and fro.

At least there wasn't any screaming. Not enough air for it. Good. No last screeched accusations to give the game away.

Malfoy wondered: was this how professional assassins functioned? Splitting everything off, shutting everything down, using only one bit at a time? Only letting their humanity resurface when it was safe? Until … maybe … one day their humanity couldn't resurface, because there was none of it left?

He hadn't been able to kill Dumbledore on that tower-top …

And at that the spell somehow _wobbled_, but then reinforced as Malfoy ground out all empathy and steeled himself to finish the job.

He couldn't afford to fail, and there were no clever evasions to be had, not this time: no last-minute, trick-shot leap where he could scrabble everyone to safety.

This was a dirty grind and it had to be done. Voldemort wanted a death. And this victim? They knew too much. It was just a matter of time before they talked.

And if they betrayed Malfoy, then they would have effectively betrayed everyone else Malfoy could still potentially save.

On so many levels, it was kill or be killed.

Given that, was it even murder? Was it instead just self-defence before the fact?

Because Horace Slughorn, a Death Eater torturer, a specialist in strangulation and release, was choking to death on the floor of Draco Malfoy's study. Murdered by his favourite spell: the Anapneo. Poetic _in_-justice.

The thinking part of Malfoy's mind considered all that, justified it all, even as the feeling part screamed on in horror.

Almost as though he were floating above it all, the thinking part rose above all the screaming and determinedly gripped his wand anew and he redoubled his efforts: _Come on you fat old bastard – you've killed and tortured tons of other people, you'd torture and kill me if it came to it - just DIE!_

And maybe it was that sharp pulse of extra power, but Slughorn did die. Right then. Right there on the study rug. A rattling, twitching, trembling exhalation of the last of his air, dead even as he did it – and then … nothing.

Nothing but Voldemort casting another casual _Scourgify_ to cleanse the smell of Slughorn's fluids. Nothing but the sound dialing back up, with it seeming to grow less dark, and Voldemort praising him expansively – eyes gleaming with satisfaction – and approving Death Eater cheers.

Nothing but sick, empty, meaningless 'glory'.

And the sound of his mother … weeping.

Malfoy looked down at his still-raised wand hand: it was not shaking at all. He didn't know if that was a good sign or a bad. Was that thing people had said, true? Was his soul split now? If he jumped up and down, would he absurdly hear the faint chink of two pieces of broken crockery clinking together where they still loosely fitted?

He felt okay, he didn't feel any different than before – except that alarmingly he didn't feel very much at all.

He felt as if he were floating.

His feet weren't quite on the ground.

He felt numb.

He had just murdered someone: coolly, with full deliberation, every chance to stop, but no chances taken.

No chances taken in any sense: because he had not been able to afford to take chances, he had not been able to afford to take the chance that Slughorn would continue to keep his trap shut on all that he knew about Malfoy.

And at that, he felt the spring of tears at his eyes but fought them back. He couldn't cry now – he _couldn't_. Part of him might want to scream and rage and tear at his hair and almost puke at the unfairness of it all. He wanted to shriek and sob – his humanity was re-asserting itself alright, but the switch back was giving him the bends. He might want to give way to all those human feelings that were suddenly swamping him – but he _couldn't!_

If he did that now, then he threw away all the precious points he had just won to help ensure his, Granger's and Mother's survival!

He would have killed for nothing!

He'd _had_ to do it! It had been do or die. Kill or be killed. Some things just _had_ to be done!

His shoulders started to tremble with rising tears. He couldn't hold his grief back. He'd never even _liked_ Slughorn – but he wasn't crying for Slughorn. Someone else had died in that room – he was crying for the death of Draco Malfoy.

And yes, that made him a shallow, self-centered bastard, but that was who he was, and it could be only seconds now and the tears would start to fall and then he would have betrayed himself, and all his desperate grubby efforts would have been for nothing, and he would be killed in turn – dying with a murder on his soul and metaphorical blood on his hands.

And all for _nothing!_

The hot welling up of imminent tears, a stinging wetness at his eyelids and then –

"If you want to get into Hogwarts, I know a passage forgotten for centuries. It takes you straight to the Chamber."

Hermione Granger had stepped up to Draco Malfoy's shoulder and had spoken, voice carrying deliberately about the room.

_WHAT? _

Malfoy blinked wildly, looking up, astonished, dashing all his unshed tears away. Granger? She was letting the Death Eaters into Hogwarts? _Hermione Granger?_

Disbelieving cries broke from some Death Eaters.

"_You?"_ Even the arrogant Voldemort wasn't going to accept that.

"I've been reading up on the castle in ancient books – books not read by anyone for decades. There's a fabled way in via the lake. It is a secret passage built by Slytherin himself that takes you to the Chamber. It's not guarded because no-one can find it. But … you are his Heir."

"The _lake -?_ She's trying to trick us!" yelped Amycus Carrow. "That lake's full of Inferi – Draco said so!"

Voldemort waved for silence. He stared at Hermione. He blinked and then - "Astoundingly," Voldemort's voice grew amused as he turned to his array of Death Eaters, "I see she's telling the truth. She believes there is a passage, one leading down from the lake. I can see in her mind that the books tell of it and … I know how to find it …"

Malfoy tried to keep his breathing even and not stare too hard at Granger, because he'd seen this before. That time in Umbitch's office when the mad cow had been about to Crucio Scarhead and Granger had slid in with a deflection – a promise to reveal secrets about a weapon.

It had been a trick.

Granger had led Umbridge into the forest, taking a huge risk to eliminate a huge danger. Running the risk that the vexed centaurs would eliminate Umbridge for her instead of eliminating Granger herself.

They had, but even Malfoy had heard that it had been a close-run thing.

But it had worked though. Was Granger trying the same thing twice, but this time playing for much higher stakes?

Voldemort turned back to her. "Why are you leading us into Hogwarts?"

"Because I've witnessed enough to want this war to end tonight – you deserve to be let into the Chamber."

Voldemort's hairless brows rose: it was an odd thing for her to have said but he could find no hint of lying there. Even so, he did nothing. Clearly there was still a great deal of mistrust and suspicion at this sudden reversal. He wasn't going for it.

"Generals don't win wars by refusing to fight."

Malfoy's quick, prompting voice sounded slightly thickened to his own ears, his throat swollen with all the crying he had not allowed himself. He pressed on, "The longer the attack is put off, the greater their defenses. A quick, unexpected strike can win the whole war."

The unspoken challenge was inferred: _are you too cowardly to take your chance?_

The Dark Lord could never bear even the inference of cowardice, he had always valued courage. He had simply never understood that courage came in many different guises.

And Draco Malfoy had just found the guts to throw in his lot with Hermione Granger.

Malfoy stared at Voldemort, chin tilted: _have you got the nerve to seize your destiny or are you going to back down?_

With a swirl of his cloak, Voldemort decided, "We move tonight."

A quiet, disconcerted muttering flew among the Death Eaters, but Voldemort over-rode it – he could not bear even any possibility that History might record him as a coward who had been too timid to take his chance for a stunning victory.

"Rookwood, ready my armies of giants and Dementors to assault Hogwarts. Jugson, alert the creature Greyback and his filth, they are always useful. Mulciber, transport the Inferi to the castle: I want them there in minutes - but I only want any outside forces to strike _after_ we have entered the castle and passed the wards. I want Hogwarts to think it is under siege and to seal itself. They will imagine they are sealing us out – but they will be sealing themselves in. Sealing themselves in with a thousand school-children and their _pets_ …"

All there looked to the cage with the slaughtered Trelawney, the broken Ginny and … the chirruping Puff …

"And when they are sealed in, Mortlake will invoke the attack of his creatures and within and without Hogwarts, children will rise and destroy. And at Hogwarts, yes, there are children who don't have Puffs, and those are the children I most admire: the strong-willed ones, the true fighters. But when the uprising starts they will be fighting for their very lives and each outnumbered ten to one." He sounded almost commiserating, "I do hope some of them survive …"

Malfoy felt Granger stiffen next to him, because whatever her plan was – and he knew she had one - the risks and stakes had just gone stratospheric. Tonight, the battle for the fate of the wizarding world was about to go wand-to-wand and hand-to-hand. Tonight, the wizarding world was going to be forced to take a stand and define its values for a millennium. And because the battle was to be fought within Hogwarts, the front-line warriors for whatever forces of light remained, weren't going to be the Order, they weren't going to be the Aurors or the Ministry, it was going to come down to whatever a hundred, outnumbered, Puff-less children chose to do.

"And amidst all that distraction," drawled Voldemort, almost dreamy now, "we will slip along and strike. Embattled, even if the school became aware that we were in the Chamber, there would be nothing they could do to stop us. I have the ring, the cup, the locket and even the tiara, I have all my Horcruxes. I am unassailable. There is nothing to stop me from using the Chamber's thousand-year-old weapon to annihilate all those unworthy to be called wizard."

There was a slight noise from a darkened corner, and many startled Death Eaters shot a glance to see what it was.

Lucius Malfoy stepped out from the shadows.

_What … ?_

Malfoy's mother gave a little cry, hand to her throat. Aunt Bellatrix looked startled but livid. Snape started. Because unbeknown to them, Lucius Malfoy had been there all along, not coming forward even once in defense his son.

"_Father …?"_

Malfoy almost felt himself stumble, but then knew he should have realised: only a Malfoy could get into this house – a Malfoy and whoever he allowed in.

His father _must_ have been there.

It was only logical.

He must have been there all along, and Draco Malfoy knew he had known it but that he had resisted the knowledge - because if Father were there, why had he not spoken up for him?

There were some facts a seventeen-year-old boy did not want to have to face, even if that boy was Draco Malfoy - _especially_ if that boy was Draco Malfoy.

"Your father was instrumental in arranging the escape from Azkaban tonight, along with the Tonks creature, of course. She arranged to have our Death Eater wands delivered from the Ministry. Where is that blood-traitor now, by the way?"

Malfoy stiffened.

Voldemort shrugged, "In any case, Lucius was always in contact with us – the Aurors thought they had given him a battered Muggle chess-set, but I have friends in the Ministry and it had been adapted before it was ever presented to him. With his Dark Mark, it allowed a rudimentary form of communication."

Lucius Malfoy bowed slightly, smiling.

"You see, your father and I have always had an _understanding_ on a certain matter, Draco. One which goes back more than sixteen years."

Malfoy's uncertain gaze flickered from his father to Voldemort and back again. But Lucius Malfoy was not looking at his son, instead he was regarding the crumpled corpse on the floor: the cadaver of Molly Weasley. His expression held a sliver of vague distaste at the clutter she represented.

"Considering your plans, My Lord," Lucius Malfoy jerked his head to indicate Ginny Weasley, "I think it is rather a convenience that the Weasel-sow -"

_Sow -?_ Malfoy stifled a gasp.

"- is already dead. Can you imagine what a dreadful mother-in-law she would have made?"

A swell of laughter, shocked at first but them rising to a full-throated humour, rippled among many of the Death Eaters: Lucius Malfoy had always been such a wit!

Malfoy wanted to voice a protest but the noise was blocked in his throat.

Voldemort nodded to Lucius Malfoy and then indicated Creevey, "Dispose of the offal."

Draco Malfoy stared wide-eyed as his father casually Avada Kedavra'd Colin Creevey.

Creevey's corpse slumped to the floor in a heap.

Malfoy made an unconscious noise, almost a hesitant note.

For the first time since his entrance, his father looked directly at him with his typical dismissive, sneering disdain. His contemptuous gaze traveled from his son and made its lazy way over to Hermione Granger, trawling over her, taking her in.

He smiled with an insulting appreciativeness.

"Excellent choice of _pet_, Draco."


	34. Chapter 34

Title: (Chapter 34)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 

**Chapter 34**

"_You sodding wanker, Potter!"_

It had been a split-second decision: to do or not to do, and given a choice like that, Harry Potter had always chosen 'do'. And now they were suspended upside-down in bowl of blazing fire. Beyond the flames were reaching, scaly hands. The stench of decaying seaweed and putrefying flesh. Hollowed, sometimes missing, eyes. The dark chorus of mindless moans.

"You pigging moron, Potter. If we get out of this, I hope Voldemort fucking-well kills you!" 

To his whisper of _'Malfoy? Draco Malfoy?'_, it had been the responding statement of_ 'Giving up Harry Potter's little friend eh? And before I've even had my wicked way with her, too', _containinghis name which had established the connection. That and silvery grey eyes cutting a downward glance, peering into the concealed mirror at an almost impossible angle as the glass had jangled in Malfoy's inside-cloak-pocket.

After that there had been the sudden jarring close-up of a glassy-nailed, pale hand giving him the finger, effectively telling him to shut up, then a mish-mash of unseen, hardly-heard conversations, with most of the words missing.

Hermione and Malfoy had clearly gotten themselves ensnared among Death Eaters, with Malfoy trying to bluff his way through.

There were mysterious gurglings and chokings, cheers, jeers and cat-calls, odd talk of 'pets', Voldemort banging on about having got his Horcruxes back and all culminating in what was, unmistakably, Hermione's voice incredibly offering the Death Eaters a way into Hogwarts! Across the Inferi infested lake and through a secret tunnel, down into the Chamber to a weapon which would 'annihilate all those unworthy to be called wizard'!

The Inferi in the lake now reached up out of the water to try and grasp Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, who bobbed upside down in the air above them. Harry was roaring in his efforts to keep he and Malfoy levitated above the waterline whilst Malfoy screamed as he shot a ragged stream of flame from his wand, encompassing he and Harry in a shell of protective fire that might at any second burn them as much as it burned the Inferi.

"_Get a move-on, Potter, you complete dickhead!"_

Harry had told Phineas Nigellus, via his miniature, to raise the alarm at Hogwarts and then had taken his 'do or not to do' decision. He had mounted up, Cloaked, and charged across the lake to intercept the flotilla of Death Eater boats – with about a hundred Death Eaters on board, evidently all those available had been summoned - which slid silently across the smooth, night-time waters. Voldemort was in the lead boat, half-standing in the prow, hand gashed open, wand dripping with his own blood and veering in his hand like a compass needle - somehow pointing the way.

He could hear Malfoy on the still-open mirror connection, keeping up a running commentary on where they were, disguised as taunting Hermione: _'What on earth do you think Potter would say if he knew I was leading you astray, Granger? Taking a girlie down into a deep, dark tunnel to do bad things in a chamber, possibly showing her his big, nasty snake?' … _Then there wasMalfoy telling him how he could get Hermione away under cover of Darkness: _'__Oh, come on Granger, let me slip you some wood while no-one's watching. I've got my hand and my Darkness Powder. Want me to throw some in the air so we can snog each other senseless without being seen? Just think: you could hold my Hand, Granger, I always knew you wanted to touch my dirty thing in the dark.'_ And about how Malfoy wanted Harry to somehow scoop Ginny Weasley to safety: '_We could have a foursome: Potter could swoop in and grab the Weasel-bint.'_

But It had been a split-second decision: to do or not to do and … Ron, Luna, good people were already dead, he couldn't bear to do nothing.

Catching up with them as they almost neared the sheer, rocky shore near the underground lake, Harry had determinedly ridden into them.

It had been chaos.

The hull of a rowing boat in the water, heads bobbing about in the lake – screaming, arms thrashing, the drowning Death Eaters being yanked under by Inferi. McNair in the water ruthlessly forcing another Death Eater beneath him, drowning him as he used the body to elevate himself out of the lake even as he drifted away into the night. Malfoy on his feet in a boat, grabbing Hermione and reaching for his wand to Disapparate, or grab his Darkness Powder or _do_ something. Away in another boat, Ginny Weasley screaming. Hermione struggling with Malfoy, half standing in their rocky rowing boat. Didn't she realise that Malfoy was trying to get her away?

Harry had veered about wildly, spinning his broom almost in a circle, wobbling violently as he tried to fire, steer and keep his Cloak on all at once.

A dust-storm filling the air as Voldemort gathered some dried sand from his boat and flung it into the air, whipping it into a churning cloud of swirling dirt which showed Harry as a hollow shape, edged about by swirling sand. Hermione, convulsively gripping a seated Death Eater and toppling them over the side so that they lurched against Voldemort's boat, rocking his aim as he steadied to shoot Harry.

A spell caught him off-balance and he veered and lost his Cloak. There was screaming and panicking as Death Eaters took aim – but the air went black and in the darkness, Harry veering wildly out of control, hitting hard against the rocky face of the far shore, hurled from his broom.

The Darkness clearing in patches, blown away on a turbulent wind called up by Voldemort. In the half-visibility, Voldemort pointing his wand at the sheer rock-face. His, thin, high laugh … _'Ahhh! It wants proof – it will only open for the blood of a Slytherin heir'. _Slashing his hand anew with a spell, pressing the blood to the rock, and a passage opening into a cave area.

A struggling Ginny Weasley was yanked into the cavern. Hermione seemingly willingly stepping into the cavern. Snape hovered, gaze darting about – looking for Harry? –before following Hermione. The Death Eaters streaming into the tunnel, Bellatrix Black looking nervously about for her sister.

Panicked, Draco Malfoy noisily defending himself against suspicions about the Darkness Powder. Voldemort staring at Malfoy. Lucius Malfoy's lizard-gaze darting between his son and his Master, then barking at his son, voice like a knife-blade. Harry, unseen in the patchy Darkness, bursting up and aiming to smash into Voldemort or at least Lucius Malfoy, but slipping and catching the startled Draco Malfoy instead. Both flailed wildly in a patch of thick Dark and toppled backwards into the Inferi-infested lake with a splash that rose up and wet the rock ledge.

Lucius Malfoy crying out to Voldemort even as his son disappeared to his death, "My Lord! My apologies! We can still get him back! My -" But Voldemort cutting him off, his voice thick with disgust, "Come! There is no time! I can always find another Draco Malfoy. I am used to the failures of the Malfoy family!"

Unwanted, it rang within Harry that Professor Dumbledore's insistence upon not changing time because it would affect how Harry viewed Snape, was right.

If Harry hadn't thought that there was a chance that Snape was against Voldemort, he would have pushed Snape over the ledge and let him take his chances with the Inferi, the way Ron had done.

And now Malfoy and he were upside-down in a bowl of fire: Harry grunting as he hauled them across to the rock ledge, wincing against the heat, levitating his own heel even as he almost dislocated his other shoulder suspending Malfoy's body-weight.

Malfoy screaming out swear-words whilst using his wand to shoot jets of Inferi-repelling, water-proof fire.

"Potter! You stupid-arsed, toss-pot!" 

Malfoy gave one last scream as Harry unceremoniously dropped him to land clumsily on the safety of the rocky ledge; Harry collapsed practically on top of him.

An ugly tangle of limbs and floppy hair, Malfoy lashed out, kicking Harry off.

"Get off, Potter, you prat!"

"Get off? I just saved your life, didn't I?" 

"What from? _I was getting away with it!"_

"Getting away -? _I saved you from Voldemort because you were in trouble over the Darkness Powder!_ He's already got Hermione – he's already taken her into that Chamber, I've lost Ron, I've lost Luna - _what was the point of giving him you?"_

"_Got _Granger? – she has a _plan!_ I don't know what it is – but she quite clearly has a plan! And now she's down there by herself! And why haven't you mentioned Ginny Weasley? She's in there too! I know that little Lovegood girl is dead, Potter, and that Weasley probably is too – _but you've got to think of the living!_ You were at the other end of that mirror, weren't you? You must have had a rough idea what was going on from what I was telling you. I could have rescued me and Granger! All you had to do was swoop in and save Ginny Weasley! _You must have known that!"_

Harry's face coloured red.

"You threw away the chance to do some real good by lashing about, being flashy and 'heroic' and tipping up boats, when you should have been picking up just one girl! _You must have known that!"_

Harry fought to rally, "I saved -"

"You saved me because you didn't want to save her! It was an ABG rescue: _Anyone But Ginny Weasley!"_

xxxx 

"Shut up and stop lying!" Malfoy yelled. "You don't care. You only wanted to save me because Dumbledore did. _You're just finishing his job for him!"_

Draco Malfoy was ranting about Ginny Weasley, about Harry's failure to save her at what had possibly been their last chance.

"For God's sake – I couldn't save everyone!" screamed Harry.

"I wasn't asking you to save everyone," yelled Malfoy, "it isn't your job to save everyone! I was asking you to save _her!_"

They were standing inside the slimy, rocky tunnel opened by Voldemort that led past the underground lake and down to the Chamber. An underground waterfall saw tons of water a minute crashing down from the lake outside. Any noises from outside went unheard. The place was deafening.

Harry had gotten inside the tunnel but he had been prevented by going along it by something unexpected: the same type of Dark Mark barrier that had sealed off the tower that time from all but Death Eaters.

Malfoy, branded, could get through, but Harry could not.

It was clear that the tunnel ran deep and Harry recalled his own long helter-skelter ride back in his second-year, back when he had been a child and had gone down to the Chamber: the Chamber was miles deep. Walking, it would take the Death Eaters an hour to get there, and he had already warned the castle.

Hence he and Malfoy stood just outside the barrier, screaming at each other. Malfoy had restrained himself enough to start telling Harry all about the unknown Death Eaters – he got as far as Cuffe, Dawlish, Bagman – but had cracked under tension and fear and they had fallen back to roaring.

Six years of unresolved animosity spewing out on both sides.

"The Chamber?You've heard the rumours! _She secretly knew all about it! _I was in the Chamber. I know what Tom Riddle said down there. He said she didn't know what was going on with the diary 'at first' – _so that means that she did later!"_

Malfoy almost choked, "You're taking his word for _anything? _I bet you're just remembering it the way you want it to be instead of the way it was!"

Harry mentally stumbled. He had bits of memory of it really: clashing, smashing, jumping pictures. But had she really come-to in the Chamber and immediately started sniveling about how it was all Tom Riddle's fault? Or had she indeed, just in those first defenceless seconds, just before her self-interest about 'being expelled' had kicked in, had she really said: 'it was _me'_?

"The first words out of her mouth were 'it _wasn't_ me'!" he roared. "Never mind anyone else: _it wasn't me!_ All she cared about was not being expelled. She's just a deceitful, self-centered -" Harry practically ran out of words. "And after that, moping and gawping and then practically changing her whole personality to attract attention to herself and 'get' me! Using boys left and right! Using Corner, setting up Dean -"

"So? Anyone with eyes to see knew that! Anyone could see – anyone except _you_, because you couldn't be bothered to look!"

"Why should I? Anything I did, she would have twisted it to 'mean' something!"

"_So what?_ She was taken over by one of the most evil bastards who ever lived! Lured in, buttered up, and then pounced on when she was _eleven years old!_ He was the friend in her pocket and he turned on her! I don't care if she was stupid for not holding her hand up about that bloody diary straight off. I don't care if she was deceitful. She was a home-schooled little girl lost in her first year at Big School who was having horrible blackouts and being preyed on and bullied by her only 'friend'. Her days must have been full of dread. She must have been living in fear. Those blackouts? _She must've thought she was going mad!_ No wonder she made real efforts to go out with you – she wasn't interested in you, _she just wanted the protection of The Boy Who Lived!"_

"I – she - _she drugged me!"_

"Oh for -! That's what this is really all about, isn't it? _The fact that you snogged her!_ You just cannot take the fact that you were _lusting_. That you finally got your precious dick dirty, you pious little Gryffindor Virgin!"

"She's a liar and a coward!" Harry waved his arm wildly in the direction of the hidden Chamber. "This mess? The mess she's in? It's all her own fault! If she hadn't dressed herself up as my girlfriend, she wouldn't have become a Death Eater target! If she hadn't pretended to be someone she wasn't, she would have been okay now!" 

"Oh, sure, I can see you're right. I can see that it's all _her _fault," Malfoy's face suddenly creased with wrath, _"because she's so smart when she's thinking with her knickers!"_

Stunned and smarting, Harry mentally flailed about for anything he could sling at Malfoy.

"_WHY DO YOU CARE? _She didn't care about you! To her, you're just the 'class creep'! She knew you fancied her and she didn't want you! All you were to her was some bloke sniffing around for it! You were to her was what she was to me: nothing! You meant _nothing_ to her! _NOTHING!_ She cared about you about as much as I cared about her, and_ I DIDN'T!"_

There was suddenly a long silence that wasn't a silence: no words from either boy, but for each just a sort of inner, rushing noise, like the sound of seashells held to the ear.

And then … no wands, no spells, no fancy wizard's dueling – it was bare fists and feet and rolling over and over and snarling and punching and gouging.

And within seconds, Harry started to panic.

Malfoy was so frighteningly and unexpectedly _strong!_

He could not believe that the slight, pale, frail-looking Malfoy could struggle so wildly or hit so hard. He had fought him once before, well, twice, well, three times if you included the awful _Sectumsempra_ incident. But once had been two-onto-one on the Quidditch pitch when Harry had punched him over and over, using the snitch as a knuckle-duster as George Weasley had more or less held Malfoy down. The other time was when Malfoy had outwitted him, magically out maneuvered him, and then stamped on his nose on the train. The third had been an unspeakable clash of wands and spells ending with a bloom of blood on a bathroom floor.

Somewhere along the way, Harry had wished that he could just have a punch-up with Malfoy that was one-on-one, no wands, no magic, no-one else, just a straight out fist-fight where a single winner could finally be decided.

Well now he had it, and as he struggled to hold on, his blood was singing with horrified panic at the sheer, screaming, feral, rage which Malfoy was hurling at him.

He had been foolish enough to tickle a sleeping dragon, and it had awoken.

He had never really wanted to hurt Malfoy – just smack some sense into him. But Malfoy had no such compunction and was gouging, clawing, biting and snarling as Harry was reduced simply to the level of just holding on.

Harry had tried to wrap his arms and legs about the threshing Malfoy, but at one point Malfoy had his thin, sinewy fingers reaching for Harry's throat, his face a raging mask. Harry's shoulders and head had desperately reared back, legs and hips still tangled up with Malfoy's as he continued to try and pin him down against the slippery rock ledge. Alarmed, he'd drawn back, panting, even as he'd kept a desperate grip of Malfoy's skinny wrists and forced the clawing hands away from his windpipe.

Terrified at what he'd unleashed, Harry had thought that Malfoy was going to tear his throat out.

Malfoy was furiously arching, flexing, wildly heaving, shoulders now pinned down but rearing up from the hips. Harry was suddenly unbalanced and sliding sideways, with Malfoy threatening to upend the scales and bear down on him. For a kaleidoscopic second, a fixed point in the swirling pattern of the fight, Malfoy was on top, hair all over his face, snarling mouth and flexed fingers, his narrow forearm actually jammed across Harry's throat, pressing down, blocking his windpipe, Malfoy's sharp white teeth a row of gritted determination. And then the balance shifted again as Malfoy over-rotated and Harry was on top.

Malfoy twisted sideways and caught Harry's wrist, biting down hard. Harry hissed and instinctively wrenched his hand back only for Malfoy, released, to lunge upward again, raring and darting like a snake.

Harry desperately caught a fistful of abundant, white-blond hair. Malfoy wrenched his head sideways, tearing himself loose, and strands of hair yanked free, wrapped up in Harry's fingers.

Harry redoubled his grip and smacked Malfoy's head back into the rock.

There was a gasp, and Harry thought Malfoy had stopped, shocked, but then Malfoy wrenched a hand free and viciously raked his glassy nails down the side of Harry's face and then Malfoy reversed, Malfoy's back suddenly now to Harry, legs and feet scrambling under him, rising up and throw Harry off, head jerking backwards, trying to butt Harry in the face, one hand planting square down against the greasy rock as the other arm elbowed back to catch Harry hard wherever it could.

More practiced at the rough stuff, Harry lurched out of reach, bent his own elbow, and smashed it down into Malfoy's back, winding him, and sending Malfoy sprawling into the rock.

Malfoy collapsed against it, lungs wheezing in the sudden exhalation.

Done.

Finally.

Over.

Harry closed his eyes – suddenly spent.

Then Malfoy turned and smashed him in the face with a lashing kick from one of his storky, jack-in-the-box legs, driving him back even as Harry felt at least one tooth come loose.

Malfoy rounded on him, crouching, on the rock. "Don't you get it?" Malfoy's face was wet with the moisture off the rocks. "Don't you get it? _I used to look up to you – you little fuckwit!"_

Harry's eyes went wide even as his hand cradled his swollen jaw and his own gore dripped from his mouth.

"You'd done what nobody else had, Potter! - even when you were just a baby! _Everyone_ knew your name. And then when I met you on the train, you turned on me. And now you're just a stupid - you stupid -" Malfoy's voice was hitching now, whether breathless or crying, "- you stupid, you useless …_" _He kicked at Harry again, lashing out, driving him back, _"You fucking waste of space!"_

As Harry looked on, blinking, astounded, Malfoy was now almost half-weeping from sheer raging anger.

"You _never _gave me a chance! Not even from the start! Not from the first time I met you in Malkin's! I was trying to talk to you – and you were just _ignoring_ me. You were some unknown short, scruffy, runt wearing ill-fitting hand me downs, your glasses were broken and I was still trying to speak to you, because yeah, I'm such a _snob_ - but you weren't listening!"

Harry's mouth shifted silently. He didn't remember it like that – he remembered Malfoy being rude and arrogant …

"And I bet I was one of the few people who ever bothered to speak to you _before _knowing you were the _Famous_ Harry Potter!"

That wasn't true – Harry was sure that wasn't true. Hagrid had … Hagrid had known precisely who he was, from the very start. But Ron had … Ron had spotted his scar on the platform and had suspected he was Harry Potter before he'd even sat down in Harry's compartment.

Harry was stunned that Malfoy remembered all that so clearly, when he had almost forgotten their first meeting in Malkin's. It was as though Malfoy had somehow hoarded all the slights he felt Harry had passed him, as though they must surely have meant something. He recalled seeing Malfoy that time at the start of second-year in Borgin and Burkes, when Malfoy's dad had been offloading hot property. Malfoy had been moving about the shop, picking things up and putting things down, yaddering on to himself, annoyed: _Harry Potter and his famous scar … Harry Potter and his fancy broom … _Malfoy's dad had been bored and irritated, having clearly heard it all a dozen times before. It was though Harry had been on Malfoy's mind all the time, as though Malfoy had carried him around with him, some warped mirror image of an 'invisible friend'.

" … And I knew something was wrong on the train coming in with that Dementor – horrible memories -"

Harry became aware that Malfoy was still talking, well, still ranting.

"– awful un-named things. And I even nicked Longbottom's Remembrall but it didn't help. But it was okay – because you'd _fainted._ And when you fell off that 'effing broom with that Dementor, I was so scared because you were the one who was going to hold the pass for the rest of us!"

Harry was astounded. Malfoy had done nothing but take the Mickey when Harry had got back to class after coming out of the infirmary! Taunting, gleeful, arms wind milling, doing spirited renditions of Harry falling off his broom, doing Dementor imitations until Ron had flung a large, slippery crocodile heart at him.

The exuberation of sheer relief?

"That sodding great Hippogriff, it nearly cut my arm off! My arm was _killing_ me for months – but later I still tried to help you and bloody Granger at that Quidditch World Cup. I _told _her to get out the way. I _said_ to keep her head down …"

Harry recalled the World Cup when the Death Eaters had sparked a riot among the drunken, laughing wizards, whipping up a disturbance, releasing repressed wizard disdain against Muggles.

Malfoy had stayed out of it, somehow distant, leaning against the trunk of a tree in the dark, arms folded, regarding the riot coolly, making no effort to get involved even though, at that point, the Death Eaters had been 'winning'. Malfoy had stared the ugly situation flat in the face and said that the rioting wizards would be after the Muggleborns next – _Mudbloods_, he'd said - and that Hermione should keep her bushy head down.

Harry and Ron had bridled at Malfoy's implication that Hermione was in any extra danger, they hadn't wanted to see that some people did think Muggleborns were inferior, resisting Malfoy's advice because they hadn't wanted to see that anyone could make a blood distinction. But Malfoy had no qualms about telling the truth. He saw the ugly side of life, and wasn't afraid to keep looking at it. In a way that was a strength.

"– and even after fourth-year and Moody and being half-killed with that ferret thing -"

Quite clearly that was something which weighed heavily with Malfoy.

"- I _still_ warned you about the Death Eaters spotting that idiot, Sirius Black, on the platform at Kings Cross. I as good as _told_ you: 'I'll be _dogging_ your footsteps' … And then I tipped you off to the Death Eater's in that Herbology lesson, them knowing about that moron Hagrid being out East looking for giants. And I was surethe Ministry was planning on locking you up as a nutter, and I practically told you that too, that same time I tried to warn you that time in the corridor, shouting about being expelled if you played Quidditch without permission …"

Harry was astounded. He did not remember _any_ of that stuff happening in that way!

"… All the times I tried to stop things going over the edge, trying to hold some balance … _and then you go and get Father_ _arrested!"_

Harry realised that Malfoy hadn't even mentioned that time he'd been beaten up on the Quidditch pitch, as though he'd just accepted that as 'stuff that just happened'. Two onto one, Harry using the Snitch like a knuckleduster – Malfoy had gotten beaten badly but he'd still managed to give George a swollen lip. Of course, Malfoy had won what he'd wanted: an advantage over Gryffindor - getting Harry banned. Strategy over strength. The Lion and the Serpent.

Then Malfoy had actively tipped his lot in with the Death Eaters when Harry had gotten Lucius Malfoy banged up – as Draco Malfoy saw it.

"Everything I've tried to do – everything -" Malfoy's voice was hitching in his throat, "- just a complete _mess_ …"

"Malfoy, just join me! It's easy. _Just take my hand_ – it's not too late!"

"It's been too late for six years!"

"Just switch sides!" 

"My Father -" There was a silence, then Malfoy shouted, "Dad was only in jail because I let you go!"

It was Harry's turn to look puzzled.

"I gave Weasel-face and that lot their wands in Umbridge's office. Have you forgotten? If I hadn't been so stupid and done it, you couldn't have got to the Ministry – _none of it would ever have happened!"_

Malfoy was feeling guilty about _that?_

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Malfoy! Hermione said -"

"_Don't quote Granger at me!_ Because you've never even got that Granger must have a plan right now, or she would never have let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts. She's taking them in for a _reason!_ It's something to do with that weapon!_"_

"What weapon? I destroyed the Basilisk!"

"The Basilisk was just guarding the weapon _in_ the Chamber!"

Harry was aghast. "There's a weapon in there that's supposed to annihilate all the Muggleborn? And that's a good reason for Hermione letting them in?"

"Oh -! _Bloody typical!_ It never said 'annihilate all the Muggleborn'! _That's not what the book said!_ It said: annihilate all those unworthy to be called wizard! _That's not the same thing!_ 'Unworthy to be called wizard'? That could mean _anything!_ It depends what you regard as _unworthy_, doesn't it – you cretin! But no – you'd never think of it that way! You get an idea in your head and it's just _stuck_ there! Especially if it's black and white because that's the only type of thinking a thick little git like you can grasp!"

At that, Malfoy crawled to his feet: split lip, blooming bruises, the lot. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "I'm going down this tunnel. The Death Eaters think I'm still one of them: if I go in now, willingly, then it proves it to them. When the action starts – and I'm sure it will – if something weird is going to go off, I want Mother, Father and Aunty out of it."

He straightened, wincing, his leg hurting from the fight, breath shaky as he wiped his face clean with the palm of his hand. His voice firmed. "Warn the school: tell them not to strengthen the wards when they think they are under attack. Tell them not to irretrievably lock themselves in. Tell them to sedate all the kids and kill all the Puffs -"

Harry started, it seemed such a bazaar suggestion.

"No time to explain, just do it. It's about pets."

Harry jolted, he recalled Voldemort saying that word.

"Those Puff things aren't natural," continued Malfoy. "They're a Death Eater shake'n'bake, they're some kind of control device that sends kids psycho. The Death Eater plan is to use the Inferi and giants to stampede the Hogwarts staff into sealing the castle. And when they are sealed inside, they'll set the Puffs off, send all the kids who have them as pets mad, and then with all that distraction, do what they like in the Chamber because then everyone will be too tied up to stop them even if wards in the Chamber went off."

"I'll use Nigellus to tell everyone. I'm coming in with you."

"_You can't get in, you time-wasting idiot!_"

Malfoy regained control of his temper, "And besides, what if I don't want you!"

Harry bridled.

"Oh don't give me that 'effing righteous act, _Nobility Boy_. I mean it: what makes you think I'd want you? What use are you going to be to me? You're rash, you're stupid. And when it gets to it, when it gets to the really dirty stuff that just needs to be done no matter how foul, how awful -" Malfoy's voice fractured but then re-hardened into a hissing anger, "_I bet you're gutless!"_

"I've been fighting Voldemort since I was -!"

"You haven't been 'fighting' him – _you've been lucky!_"

"Malfoy, I saw you on the tower. You're so tough, so calloused? You can 'do whatever it takes'? You couldn't kill Professor Dumbledore. Even the Felix backfired all that year because you didn't want to kill. What makes you think you can kill anyone else now?"

"Because I already have, Potter. I killed someone tonight. That choking you must have heard? It was me killing Slughorn!"

Harry felt something abruptly slip within him. _Malfoy had killed …?_

"It was him or me! Him or Granger! _I had to do it! _They'd already killed Mrs. Weasley when they'd grabbed Ginny Weasley, they weren't going to stop at us once the truth came out!"

Mrs. Weasley …? 

Harry felt as though he'd been pushed over a cliff and was falling through mid-air, his stomach not quite able to catch up with him.

"Granger and I got swept back to the Death Eaters by accident. Slughorn was there. He knew I'd been trying to walk both sides of the street. I had to get him before he got me. I had to kill someone – _so I killed him!"_

But Professor Dumbledore had refused to turn back time and save Ron and Luna because he hadn't wanted Malfoy to kill … and now that had all been a waste …?

"I'm already up for a Lifetime in Azkaban, Potter," Malfoy's voice was a cracked laugh now, "I'm going to pay for it anyway, so it might as well be: commit one crime, commit one thousand free. And besides, Mother and Father are down there -"

Harry felt a blaze of anger. Malfoy had killed? The Professor's refusal had been for naught?

Harry hurled his wrath at Malfoy.

"Your father? Will you give over about your dad! _He treats you like a dog!_ I saw you together that time in Borgin and Burkes in second-year! He didn't even waste whole sentences on you!"

"Do not criticise my father!"

"Why not? I'm sick and tired of hearing 'my father' from you! You're always saying it, always quoting him. It's like you're trying to convince everyone that he loves you and cares about you – convince even yourself!" Harry lashed about for some deep core of reality that he could fling at Malfoy to wake him up._ "Trying to convince, because deep-down you know it's not true!"_

Harry felt his lip split as Malfoy's fist hit him in the face.

Harry was expecting another roiling, over and over set-to, but instead there was only a hot-eyed silence from Malfoy as they other boy glared at him, breathing noisily through his nose.

"I've had it with you, Potter," Malfoy's voice was an angry, tearful hiss now. "I don't care if you're _Prophecy Boy_ – if that turns out to mean anything in the end anyway. Calling me about my dad? What about you and that Godfather of yours?"

Harry started – _Sirius?_

"I heard what Granger said – she only dosed you because you were out of hand and getting people topped."

"I – I wasn't – I didn't -!"

"You _did!_ I know the story: you blundered in there and then that Order lot had to run in after you. Sirius Black got killed – but he wouldn't even have been there if it wasn't for you!"

"I did not kill Sirius!"

Malfoy was suddenly livid.

"_You did and you know you did! Because if you weren't so sure you were guilty, you wouldn't be screaming so hard that you weren't!"_

Harry took a staggering step back as though he'd been pushed.

Malfoy's expression darkened, scowling. He took a single step back which took him beyond the invisible Dark Barrier. Without taking his eyes off Harry, Malfoy reached into his cloak-pocket, drew out his half of the two-way mirror set, dropped it to the floor and, with a grim set to his mouth, shattered the glass under his boot-heel.

He had severed the connection between them.

Malfoy gave him a disgusted look and turned on his heel and limped off into the dark.

Harry blinked and stared after him.

And then ran from the tunnel. _Ron, Luna, Professor Dumbledore and … Sirius …?_

_But he had only been doing what he thought was right!_

_He had not killed Sirius!_

He raced out from the tunnel as though he was trying to outrace his own thoughts, because at least he could warn Hogwarts not to seal itself shut, not with the enemy already within.

But it was all too late for that.

Harry and Malfoy had been thundering at each other in the echoey tunnel, deafened by roaring water, and had not heard what had been happening outside: with the Death Eaters well inside the tunnel, the Inferi and giants and Dementors had already attacked.

The castle was already under siege.

About him, Harry felt the shudder of rocks and the great grinding sounds of stones shifting as mighty defences were deployed, gates and locks were barred and wards were redoubled.

The tunnel behind him closed, as did every other entrance into Hogwarts.

Hogwarts had just sealed itself: but its inhabitants were not protected from without, instead they were now exposed to the danger from within.

"Phineas! Phineas Nigellus!" Harry was screaming into his currently blank miniature portrait, but it was all too late.

An insignificant speck on a rocky ledge by a lake, Harry looked up into the black night sky as it churned with Dementors, the walls besieged by giants, the grounds a seething mass of Voldemort's pushing, grunting Inferi who had overwhelmed the wards at the school boundaries: too dead to be damaged by them.

The glittery black night sky was alight with the flash and smoke of wand-fire as those manning the Hogwarts battlements shot wildly down at the press of attackers below.

The air was alive with panicked yells.

And then above all that, came high-pitched screams as a little girl ran, panicking, along the battlements, her hands to her hair, trying to tug something off her.

A Pygmy Puff.

And from within the castle more screams could be heard: more children running about wildly as they now wrestled with the demons at their shoulders.

Dementors. Inferi. Giants. A red-streaked, spell-strewn night. The whole scene was a horrid, heated, heaving, daemonic morass.

Hieronymous Bosch had come to Hogwarts.


	35. Chapter 35

Title: (Chapter 35)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 

**Chapter 35**

Dementors reared overhead as Harry stood on the lake-shore and instinctively half-crouched under the crash and smoke of barrages of spellfire. Inferi milled in a lowing, seething mass at the base of the castle walls, Aurors on the far lakeside pointed wands at them whereupon they thrashed about amongst themselves.

Harry tried not think of who the Inferi had been when they had been alive.

Although many of their clothes had rotted to rags, about half of them seemed to be attired in suits and formal dresses and the other half in – of all things – shorts and summer-frocks.

The earlier activity among their own Inferi had not gone un-noticed by Ministry monitoring teams and an Auror crew – 'Scrimgeour's boys', the ones who had been in on the Inferi plan - had hurriedly been despatched to check the lake 'situation'. Upon arrival, the garbled cries of townsfolk – _Harry Potter! Harry Potter!_ – the bristling explosions of the Head of Hogwarts, the wailed half-explanations of the sobbing Tonks and … the dead school-child … had seen them reporting hurriedly back to the Ministry.

There had been suppressed panic among the Auror team, fearing that the school-girl had been killed by their Inferi. They had been almost relieved when it had emerged that she had been killed by someone who had been acting under the Imperius for Bellatrix Black.

A dead school-girl? Bad for the Department's reputation. But it would have been worse if it had been as a result of their use of Dark Magic.

A horrified Professor McGonagall had swept back to the castle.

Luna Lovegood's body had been temporarily transferred to the sanctuary of the church.

Then the giants and Dementors and Inferi had attacked and the wards had gone up with the Aurors still trapped outside.

Flying above them, having recovered his broom from the rocks but unable to find his Cloak, Harry had pitched erratically, hoping to go un-noticed by the Dementors clustered about the castle walls. He had angrily dashed tears from his face even as they fell: for all that Professor Dumbledore had sacrificed Ron and Luna to save Malfoy from becoming a murderer, it had all happened anyway.

And then there was what Malfoy had said about Sirius.

When Harry had appeared – flying in low – he had stubbornly stood before Scrimgeour, all dirty face and tear-stains and split lip, all swollen jaw and bruises, almost daring the Aurors to make something of it.

"Nice night for it, Harry."

"I've had better, Scrimgeour." Harry's voice was very thick and rough, "Going to try and grab me again?"

"Rather late for that now, don't you think?" Scrimgeour waved a hand at the whole crazed arena as screams and spellfire deafened out.

Dementors swooped above them, held off by a canopy of various strengths of Patroni. Harry noticed that Scrimgeour made no effort to add his to the number.

"I'm a little short on happy memories, Harry."

"Aren't we all?"

Aurors and Ministerial aides ran about wildly. Ministry staff from all and any departments were there, some panicking and some with their sleeves rolled up, looking grim.

Harry even recognised the bespectacled wizard from 'Muggle Relations' whom Malfoy had spoken to at the Reception. He even thought he saw Umbridge scurrying about, looking hysterically panicked and screeching something about '_the centaurs are the secret threat! They are the Four Legged Fiend!'_

Most of the wizards looked away from her as though she were an embarrassment.

Scrimgeour gave her a disgusted look, "Can someone kindly escort Madam Umbridge from the scene? She may be of more help back at the Ministry."

A Ministerial aide scampered after her, but looked as though he didn't hold out much hope of succeeding.

In the darkened chaos, hardly any but Scrimgeour recognised Harry – his scar covered by the dirt on his face.

Away in the mid-distance, Harry caught a flash of bubblegum pink: the ex-Imperiused Tonks. She was flailing about wildly, sobbing, driving anyone away who might come near her, looking like she might collapse into a sobbing heap at any second. Her face was crumpled, soaked with tears, contorted with grief under the sudden weight of her dreadful actions.

She had armed the Death Eaters, spied for them, tried to steal the locket Horcrux for them.

She had killed Luna Lovegood.

"Tonks claims she was Imperiused," commented Scrimgeour. "Of course, they all say that."

Somebody passing, snorted with ill-humour, "Probably trying to come up with some excuse for why she's been shagging a werewolf." He laughed and mimicked a high, female voice, "I never fancied him, the Imperius made me do it."

Harry punched him, and Scrimgeour had to pull Harry off.

Harry was roaring – but he wasn't sure what at.

"No Percy Weasley?" someone called.

"Not here, Lord knows where he is. Always knew he didn't have the stomach for a fight."

Harry looked up sharply to see who had responded and was hit by a shock like a thump to his chest: it was Draco Malfoy. And then realised it wasn't – he was looking instead at the person whom Malfoy had 'worn' the face of at Bill's wedding-reception: Francis Dashwood.

The real Dashwood was now taking the chance to blacken Percy Weasley's reputation and Harry recalled something else from the wedding: that Dashwood regarded Percy as 'career competition'.

"That's Weasley all over, Sir," persisted Dashwood to Scrimgeour, playing politics while there was a war on, "– okay in the office but useless when it comes to the real thing."

Harry flashed a hot, angry look at Dashwood; he disliked this Dashwood, the real Dashwood, in a way he hadn't disliked Malfoy's Dashwood at all.

Harry recalled the wizard riot at the Quidditch World Cup, when Percy had stood up to be counted like a man, even though he had only a few weeks out of school at the time and could have been expected to hang back without any shame: Percy Weasley was nobody's coward.

An Auror broke in, "Still no Cursebreakers, Sir! The Gringotts top-brass has put a Cursebreaker _Retardius_ within a five mile radius of Hogwarts, so any Cursebreaker who does manage to turn up, won't be able to fight."

"Gringotts were offered incentives by You Know Who, rewards if they simply chose not to fight," said Scrimgeour. "It looks as though they have made their decision."

"They were offered incentives? Why couldn't _you_ offer them incentives!" yelled Harry, turning suddenly. "Why were you so stupid and stubborn about it!"

Scrimgeour's mouth went hard and he looked away.

Beneath the withering cold of the Dementors and the _whoosh_ of spellfire, Harry wildly told Scrimgeour all he knew about Dawlish, Cuffe, Bagman and others being Death Eaters.

Harry steeled himself to say it, knowing what it had cost him, "There were Inferi in the lake!"

There was a pause.

"I know. They're mine."

Harry almost choked on his outrage.

"They are the ones struggling against Voldemort's now," Scrimgeour persisted, "I knew he'd be building an Inferi Army somehow, so as a counter-balance, I knew I would need one."

"They're …?" Harry felt a boiling, churning, bubbling wrath. "They're _yours?_" He glared at Scrimgeour with the blazing-eyed rage of a Basilisk. _"They killed Ron Weasley!"_

"They were guarding the lake, Harry."

"Where the hell did you get them all from! Did you kill all those people to make Inferi?"

"We got the Inferi at Brockdale Bridge."

Then Harry remembered the far off Bank Holiday Muggle bridge collapse. He recalled the rotting beach-clothes half of the Inferi were wearing.

"You _killed _them all?"

"No – the bridge collapsed. There was a huge loss of life, we simply took the necessary advantage of the situation."

"The necessary_ advantage?"_

"They were already _dead_, Harry! The situation was already a disaster: we simply made the best of the opportunity it represented!"

"Just like Amelia Bones, was it? _Was she an accident too?"_

Scrimgeour shot Harry a shocked glance and then quickly recovered as a Ministerial aide ran up.

"Minister! Our Inferi are barely holding, and we're not making any inroads on the giants. Their leader – Golgomath – is wearing an indestructible battle helmet! Really, what kind of idiot gives a pure-blood giant and indestructible battle helmet?"

Harry interrupted, glaring hot-eyed at Scrimgeour, his words gritted,_ "Did you kill her?"_

Scrimgeour hurriedly waived the aide away.

"Kill who?"

"Stop playing games – you know who: Amelia Bones. Smashed to death? Killed in a 'nasty incident' while locked in her own flat? She was practically the Minister elect. Only someone who knew her security details inside out could get in. And with her alive, you'd never have made Minister. Did you do it?"

"It was an accident."

Harry felt a thump of overwhelming shock – Scrimgeour wasn't even denying any involvement. There was no ''I wasn't there'. He was saying that he had done it, but it had been 'by accident'?

"What? You beat her to death _by accident_?" Harry could hear the cracked laughter in his own voice. "What did you do – keep accidentally _Reducto_-ing the ceiling so it kept on falling on her – but _ooops_?"

Scrimgeour was starting to look about, apprehensive at being overheard.

"I never meant it!"

"But you still did it!"

"I _didn't!_ I took a – she - she _panicked!"_

If Harry had been less heated himself, he would have reflected that it was the first time he had ever heard Scrimgeour sounding fraught and defensive.

"I was telling her about Brockdale Bridge. I showed her one of the Inferi, because I knew she wouldn't believe me otherwise. Then she became outraged, saying she was going to have me arrested – How? By my own Aurors? She started screaming she was going to order the _Finito_ of the Inferi and thus lose us our army. We needed an army! She just wouldn't listen. And then she started panicking."

"So the Inferius just killed her – just like that?"

Scrimgeour stilled, finding it within himself to stare at Harry, "It was an _accident."_

An aide raced up, looking at the skies, "They should be here soon, Sir. At the speed they fly, they should be imminent."

Harry felt his teeth grind, "_What_ is imminent?"

Scrimgeour straightened, "Heliopaths, Harry."

_Helio -?_

Harry almost screamed with laughter, _"There's no such thing!"_

"Of course there is, Harry. The Ministry specialists have been developing them: hybrids, a combination of dragon, giant and Thestral. Flying, fast-moving, agile, immensely strong, and fire-spitting."

"You created an entire _species?_"

Scrimgeour continued as though Harry wasn't screeching.

"Not entirely successfully, not yet. It's still patchy, the strain isn't true: some are a lot more Thestralish, some are a lot more dragonish, some are a lot more giant. We'll get there though: a flying, fast-moving, strong, fire-spitting, agile creature was ideal for eliminating massed ranks of Inferi, so we created it."

"You'll have to Obliviate half of Muggle Britain! People will see them flying overhead!"

"I doubt it. Their Thestral aspects make them invisible to those who haven't seen death. And it's quite amazing the number of Muggles who haven't. They watch violent films, watch violence on the news, even play violent Muggle video games – but actually witnessing someone die in person? They shie from it. They can't even bear to be with their relatives as they expire: real death frightens them, they'd rather pretend it wasn't there. I suspect that surprisingly few people will notice the Heliopaths as they shoot north."

"For God's sake – the Pygmy Puffs being used in there are just the same – _experimental monsters!"_

"Yes, but they were created by those who wished to destroy society rather than preserve it."

Seething, Harry told Scrimgeour about the Death Eaters, the tunnel, the Chamber; about Hermione and Malfoy being against the Death Eaters, even about the Horcruxes that were with Voldemort - at which point Scrimgeour had started – and then about the mysterious weapon.

"Weapon? _What weapon?"_

"It's something in the Chamber – it was put there by Slytherin a thousand years ago. It's supposed to 'annihilate all those unworthy to be called wizard' but -"

Before Scrimgeour could take a stance on it, a soaking McNair had half-crawled, been half-dragged out of the lake and had been flung before them.

Harry was so battered by the night's events, that he wasn't even astonished.

McNair looked about wildly, obviously trying to calculate his best tactics.

"Minister! Minister, I was Imperiused! He made me do it! I -"

Scrimgeour coolly pointed his wand, "Stop wasting time and tell me what I want to know."

McNair froze – clearly trying to gauge how much he should tell so as not to compromise any future with Voldemort, should Voldemort still win.

Scrimgeour simply Crucio'd him, letting him writhe, squirm and scream.

Harry rounded on Scrimgeour.

"That's Dark Magic!"

"There's no such thing as Dark Magic, Harry. There is simply magic and the situations in which it is applied."

"You're torturing him!" 

"As you once ineptly attempted to torture Bellatrix Lestrange in the Ministry during a battle. Or did you think that the Ministry building went un-monitored? I haven't got a particular problem with hypocrisy, Harry, it's the _lingua franca_ of politics, but let's not allow it to over-ride the necessities of reality, shall we?"

Scrimgeour returned his attentions to McNair and uttered a civil, smiling, _Finito_. He jerked McNair to his feet with a few sharp spells. "Now," he addressed the shocked-looking McNair with smiling _politesse_, "as we have both established our credentials: you as a worthless Death Eater and I as someone not above using your own methods against you, shall we begin again?"

McNair eyed Scrimgeour's wand the same way a terrorised Muggle might eye the barrel of a gun which had been shoved into his face: disbelieving panic.

"_Cruc -"_

McNair's scream cut off Scrimgeour's drawl. He blurted everything he knew without reservation: the Chamber, the weapon, the Pygmy Puffs, Voldemort's Chosen One.

"We knew all that already," interjected Scrimgeour. "We already know Harry's the _Chosen One_."

McNair looked about in disbelief then gave a high, wild laugh.

"Not Potter – Voldem – the Dark Lor - it's _Malfoy!_ It's _Draco Malfoy!"_

"What?" 

Harry and Scrimgeour were at one in their astonishment.

McNair was beyond any circumspection, he was telling everything: negotiating for his life. "It was a plan – a plan right from the start! The Dark Lord had always planned on immortality, but he knew there was a flaw: no Horcrux would stop him from ageing! It's something to do with that! It's some kind of sacrifice!" 

_Sacrifice?_ Harry was horrified. But Malfoy couldn't be the subject of Death Eater machinations! He just couldn't be! He'd just walked down to the Chamber protected only by the assumption that they would consider him one of their own!

"Give us details," bit out Scrimgeour.

"I don't have any -!"

Scrimgeour Crucio'd McNair again.

This time, Harry said nothing to stop him.

McNair screamed and writhed, yelling high and hoarse. "It's something to do with a Chosen One – that's all I know!"

Scrimgeour took the spell off.

"Details!"

Scrimgeour pointed his wand again.

"I don't know any! It was at the most secret level! Do you think I'd be lying at a time like this?" Scrimgeour jabbed his wand again, evidently he did think McNair could be lying at a time like this. McNair panicked, shrieking. "It's the Blacks! That's all I know! It's something to do with the Blacks!" 

"Malfoy's mother -?" Harry found himself roaring, "_His mother wouldn't stand for it!"_

"She doesn't know anything about it!" Scrimgeour threateningly jabbed again. 

McNair backed up wildly.

"IT WAS HIS FATHER'S IDEA! It wasn't a Black who proffered up Draco Malfoy: it was a Malfoy! Parvenus, new money married into old. Lucius Malfoy saw the opportunity for power and position and he took it: whatever the Chosen One is, Lucius Malfoy would be the father of the Chosen One, he would be the man owed favours by the Dark Lord!" 

Harry was speechless.

"Draco Malfoy was born to serve the Dark Lord!" shrieked McNair. "Offered up as a baby! That was all he ever was: the Chosen One!"

His father had set it all up? And Draco Malfoy was walking into the Chamber, thronged about with those who had always meant to sacrifice him, and he had no idea about any of it?

Harry swiveled upon Scrimgeour, "We have to get into that Chamber. We have to _stop_ them!"

But Scrimgeour was calculating on a far different level. "Why?"

"_Why?"_

"We know where the Death Eaters are, we know where Voldemort is, we know where his Horcruxes are, we know where that weapon is."

"_And?"_

"We can destroy them. Destroy it all in one swoop. Use the Heliopaths to bring down the castle upon them. Stamp out this whole thing for an entire generation."

"_WHAT? What about Hermione and Malfoy and Ginny Weasley!"_

"Three deaths? To save possibly millions? Your mathematics doesn't make sense, Harry."

"There's about a thousand kids in that castle!"

"When we get the wards down, we'll get them out – but we're leaving the Death Eaters in the Chamber. With the wards down, the Heliopaths can get at the job properly: we're bringing the place down on whoever is left in it. The Chamber will be crushed along with everyone in it."

"You don't even know it'll work! It might all be for nothing! The Death Eaters probably aren't even in the Chamber yet. It takes miles to get there!"

"Yes, and if they set off at about when the giants and Dementors attacked, then they'll easily be there by the time the wards eventually crash."

"You can't destroy Hogwarts! It's the school – it's -! The Chamber's miles under the ground! Crashing the castle won't even touch it!"

"It will, Harry. It's a matter of Ministry record that the space between the Chamber and the castle is honeycombed with tunnels," – Harry remembered all the pipes he had seen branching off from the main pipe as he had slid to the Chamber, "- the weight of the castle plus Potion Bombs will do it."

"You _cant!"_

Scrimgeour swiveled towards him.

"I have responsibilities! I can't just walk away from this. I have responsibilities to the whole of society – both Wizard and Muggle – I have to think about all that, not three children stuck in a chamber!"

"But there was a prophecy! I _am_ the Chosen One! I'm supposed to be able to kill him off. He's in that castle, his Horcruxes are there. _You've got to get me in there!"_

"The school will fall and the Chamber will be destroyed! The end!"

Harry looked about him wildly – no-one was going to help him! And then, before he could be stopped, he kicked off into the air on his broom.

He knew he must get to the Chamber.

It was all a mess.

Everyone's plans had fallen apart.

But if nothing else, he could still try and save those last three people.

Scrimgeour convulsively reached out to stop him but McNair's expression screwed up in disgust, "Oh let him go, the stupid boy."


	36. Chapter 36

Title: (Chapter 36)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 

**Chapter 36**

There was screaming and spellfire, smoke and the swoop of Dementors. The battlements seemed to be thick with screeching, clawing Pygmy Puffs and with children screaming and tearing: at themselves, at teachers, at each other.

"If we ever get out of this, I'm going to put that little bastard Hinchley in detention forever!"

"Remus," admonished Professor McGonagall, horrified, "- _language!"_

Remus flung the lashing, snarling Hinchley off him, hand instinctively flying to the side of his face and hissing with the smart as he drew his fingers back and inspected the blood oozing from his torn flesh.

"Well, I've heard of werewolf bites boy – but _boy bites werewolf?"_

Hinchley sprang again and Remus just had time to get him with a Jelly Legs, then took a grimly determined second go and smacked Hinchley unconscious with a hard-flung_ Stupefy._

Harry could see the two professors, plus Justin Finch-Fletchley and Terry Boot, protecting a group of small children as they were driven back under an onslaught of Puffs and their furious, screeching pupils.

Harry distinctly heard Justin Finch-Fletchley's posh, complaining, carrying tones, "I _knew_ I should have gone to Eton!"

Hogwarts was in a rampage.

The Pygmy Puffs had 'gone off' inside Hogwarts and were causing their children to attack teachers and anyone else who trammeled them. Teachers and un-Puffed children had been driven out onto the battlements. Above them, flying on his broom, Harry horribly wondered if it had been some herd instinct on behalf of the Puffs: to drive their enemies over the edge, like cattle driven off a cliff.

There was only one advantage the Puff-less had over the Puff-children: those affected by the Puffs had lost their magic under the effect, most of them had even hurled away their wands. It was probably something to do with their diminished sense of self and self-control. If they had retained their magic, they would have been impossible to resist.

Astoundingly, the children – attacked and attackers alike – were in their night-clothes! The attack had come when everyone had been dressed for bed, sleeping en masse in the Great Hall for the sake of security following the Slughorn rumours.

The wealthy Justin was in a pair of expensive stripy pyjamas, hand-made carpet slippers, and a richly-textured, monogrammed night-coat. Terry was in a well-worn Man United footie top and rumpled, pyjama bottoms.

A particularly vicious little Puff-girl, her Puff on her shoulder, was incongruously wearing a frilly, cotton nightie, fluffy slippers, and a flower-patterned bed-jacket.

Harry desperately tried to get to them.

Remus was on a lower section of battlements, not one near the roof, but one near the outer curtain wall. They must have been in the Great Hall at the time of the uprising, and Remus and McGonagall and some Puff-less children had been driven to the nearest outside space. They had been pushed along a battlement, toward another section of the castle wall.

Remus was trying to fend off attacking kids without actually harming them, even though they were going flat out to kill him.

Away to one side, arrayed at the edge of the forest, Harry saw that the centaurs were lined up, nervously watching the raging battle: Harry feared that to them Hogwarts must have seemed like some great Mediaeval fortress besieged by a hellish enemy, with those in the fortress having no chance of winning. He recalled that only Firenze had attended Dumbledore's funeral. Although the rest had done the honour of shooting their bows from across the lake, they had not come, not even for Dumbledore, and now he was dead.

The Centaurs were a thick, jumbled fringe at the forest boundary, many still just within the safety of the trees. They each had their bows and quivers-ful of arrows, but not a one shot. Instead, they looked at each other nervously, heads tossing back, almost in a fretful, whinnying gesture, hooves anxiously pawing the ground, back legs occasionally kicking out with tension.

But they did not come onto the losing side.

Harry remembered Bill's reports that the Centaurs wouldn't come to Hogwarts' aid: that they could win benefits from Voldemort simply by staying out of the fight. And what had Hogwarts ever really done for them?

Harry saw the shaggy-coated, Bane waving an arm angrily, pointing back in the direction of the forest, indicating that they should return to it. A grey, hard-faced centaur whom Harry had once met, clearly supported him. But others looked far less certain, and many milled about, hooves stomping in rising unease as the increasingly panicked, high, thin screaming of children carried across the night.

Ronan, with his red hair, red beard, and gleaming chestnut body, stood silent, staring. Magorian, with his russet body, proud, high-cheekboned face and long black hair, stared over the gesticulating Bane – his gaze upon the castle.

Harry recalled that Magorian had been one of those arguing for the safety of he and Hermione that time in the forest: _we do not touch the innocent_.

On his broom, Harry dodged and swooped.

The sky was streaked by the hooded, dry, rattling Dementors, swooping about for prey, floating like long-trailed jellyfish in a tank, riding the eddies and waves, ready to ensnare their victims then hold them as their gaping, horrid mouths closed in for the soul-sucking kill.

Harry careened between them, but he had always been a juicy target for them, and rebounding off the unyielding wards he had become surrounded by them, his panic rising as their pressing numbers grew ever greater.

Guarding a small contingent of Puff-less second-years, being beaten back by an onslaught of savage, screaming, attackers, Professor McGonagall could only let out a high-pitched scream as she looked up and saw him trying to beat them off.

Remus tried to divert his wand power into weakening a spot in the wards to allow Harry to escape through it, but Harry was now almost toppling from his broom, blood freezing, teeth chattering from the assault. He tried to lash out with a Patronus, but he had so little to be happy about now and one wouldn't come and …

Part of him almost wanted to let go.

He'd lost Ron, he'd lost Luna; what Malfoy had said about Sirius …_ if you weren't so sure you were guilty, you wouldn't be screaming so hard that you weren't!_

Then another set of panicked roars, ones very close, actually in the air next to him. Harry shook his vision clear and saw, floating in mid-air about fifty yards away, a struggling figure, screaming. Silhouetted against the black sky, it was a cut-out shape against the stars. It jerked like a puppet even as its mouth was open wide, delivering scream after terrified scream.

There was a momentary illuminating flash of red spell-fire, and Harry saw that it was McNair.

He was suspended in mid-air, screaming, flailing about. And then Harry saw what was really holding him up: a stream of magic, determinedly emanating from the wand of a wizard on the ground: Scrimgeour.

Floating wildly in mid-air, defenceless, powerless to save himself, McNair was horribly like the family of Muggles, back during the wizard riot at the Quidditch World Cup when McNair had been among those Death Eaters holding them aloft, brandishing them like trophies of victory or figures of sport.

The thrashing, flailing, howling McNair held no wand, but did have a mind ever-brimming with bitterness, hidden miseries …

A Dementor's feast.

Confused, distracted by such a fulsome banquet, the Dementors hovered and then, in increasing numbers, floated away from Harry and drifted over to the easier target of McNair.

Soon they would be thick about him … _feeding_ …

Harry jerked his broom, half intending to somehow drive the Dementors off.

And got less than a yard before he was slammed to a halt, his broom giving a sudden, frightening lurch, and for a split second he thought he was going to fall into the morass of heaving Inferi below.

He aimed the broom again, trying to drive toward the ever-thickening knot about the whimpering McNair: a tightening knot of now-feasting Dementors. Again the broom lurched, and he realised it was completely out of his control. He couldn't turn it. He couldn't direct it at all. Instead of flying, he was now veering unevenly back toward … the Minister for Magic.

Scrimgeour was dragging him back.

Harry's out of control broom reminded him of that time in first-year, during the Quidditch match when Quirrell had gotten control of his Nimbus. Hagrid had said that it was virtually impossible to deflect a broom in mid-flight, that only powerful Dark Magic could do it.

Well, Scrimgeour was doing it now.

"NO!" 

Harry was panicking, was Scrimgeour aiming to kill him? To get rid of someone whom he knew suspected about he and Amelia Bones?

Harry lurched wildly, looking up and under him, craning to look back at the now moaning McNair who was trapped amidst the rattling, squelching, sucking mass, now supported in the air by the Dementors themselves.

With McNair's screams now trembling to nothing as the Dementors gorged upon him, those at the periphery of the feeding group edged out, unable to fully sate their thirsts, and turned their attentions back to Harry.

On his current forced trajectory, he would not be able to escape them.

Scrimgeour was going to kill him in front of hundreds of witnesses: disguising it as a Dementor attack.

At Harry's back, Remus ploughed all his effort into weakening the wards at just one single spot as Professor McGonagall desperately fought back the hoards of ravening, blood-crazed children. With a frantic burst of energy, Remus opened a small vortex in the ward, and the unseen force on Harry's broom swirled him wildly about and propelled him through it. He caught on the edge of the closing vortex as he went, his broom spinning sideways from the impact and smashing into a stone wall.

It splintered in two. His hard-used broom had finally given up.

Toppled to the floor, Harry looked disbelievingly at the bits.

Sirius had bought him that.

Sirius.

"Harry? _Harry!"_

Harry came-to, prompted by Remus' shouting, and then shrieked out, pointing at the cluster of Dementors over the battlements.

"Scrimgeour was trying to kill me! He had control of my broom!"

"Kill you? He was trying to _save_ you. He was trying to get you back to the ground!"

"No! He fed McNair to the Dementors. He was going to do the same to me!"

"He used him as bait, Harry! He had to – they were all over you. He needed to throw them bait, and he picked McNair!"

Harry stared at Remus, disbelieving, aghast, even as Remus turned about and re-commenced battling the Puffs.

But … the Minister could have just as easily sent him smashing into the castle walls or down into the Inferi, but he had reversed Harry's flight path and sent him through the vortex to safety – well, the relative safety of the battlements rather than the Dementor-filled skies.

Harry struggled to lever himself up from the floor and in his confusion a Puff took it's chance and leapt at him: all snarls, blazing eyes and teeth.

Harry was so astounded by the sight that he could not even react.

"_Incendio!"_ screeched Professor McGonagall, deflecting her wand power from her barrier of Protegos for the second it took to attack the Puff. The creature exploded in mid-air, a ball of scorched fur, the atmosphere thick with the stink of burnt hair.

"I may be getting on a bit, Mr. Potter," cried the Professor with a slight tinge of the vindicated, "but a Wizard's Battle isn't about age, is it?"

A second Puff leapt – like a screeching hob-goblin – and this time Harry was more ready. No time to go for his wand, he whipped his broken broom handle around in a quick, fast arc, and caught the Puff a stunning clout, sending it flying over the battlements like a ball hit with a rounders bat.

The last thing his broom could do for him.

In the screaming chaos, nearby a cat rolled over and over, hissing and slashing, valiantly trying to battle the biting Puffs clamped to it. Harry grabbed his wand and shot the rolling, hissing bundle of fur: the cat was unconscious and out of action but so were the four tearing Puffs which had been viciously latched to it.

There were just too many Puffs: there had been hundreds of them at Hogwarts, and each one now had a child enslaved to its ferocious bidding.

"What are these things?" screeched Remus over his shoulder. "The school's gone mad!"

"Malfoy says they're 'shake'n'bakes'!"

"They're_ what?"_

"Experimental animals, illegal Death Eater experiments. They're designed to send kids nuts!"

Harry realised that he had not even had the time to tell Remus or Professor McGonagall about what was really going on – that this whole Puff-attack was simply a diversion!

"This whole thing – the Dementors, giants, Inferi – they were just meant to get you to raise the wards, trapping yourselves inside and locking the Aurors outside. And then the Puffs were set off to pin you all down. But it's all just a distraction! The thing that really matters – it's the Death Eaters, _they're headed for the Chamber! _They _want_ everyone screaming and running about! They want everyone pinned down so that they could do what they liked in the Chamber. They want the castle in a rampage, so even if you found out they were there, you couldn't do anything about stopping them when they set the weapon off!"

"Weapon? But the Chamber's _empty!" _yelled Remus, fending off seething Puffs. "The Basilisk's _dead!"_

Away to one side, McGonagall looked uncomfortable.

"It's not the Basilisk!" shouted Harry. "That was never the weapon. It was just there as some kind of," Harry flung about desperately for a term, "some kind of _guard-snake_! It was only ever there to guard the real weapon!"

"The _real _weapon?" Professor McGonagall suddenly looked very alert.

"Something Slytherin left there: something to annihilate all those unworthy to be called wizard. _The Death Eaters are going to set it off!"_

Justin Finch-Fletchley's wand aim wavered as he threw Harry a panicked look. Justin was a Muggleborn, and they all knew of the legend of the Chamber.

"Eyes _front,_ Mister Finch-Fletchley!" barked Professor McGonagall.

"Yeah – get on with it, Finchie!" yelled Terry Boot.

Justin continued battling, teeth gritted.

Remus was so aghast at the Death Eater plan that for a second even his Protego wavered - and a Puff leapt at him, flying forward as though from a catapult, all claws and gaping jaws. Remus only just managed to Incendio it, and Harry had to duck to miss the now-blazing, screaming bundle. He looked, horrified, as the writhing Puff hit the floor, and Remus shot it with a spell so hard that it blew apart into fiery fragments.

Harry stared at Remus, but Remus wasn't going to apologise or be ashamed, "Is there anyone to stop them down in that Chamber?"

"Draco Malfoy and Hermione's there too and so's Ginny Weasley, but it's not like she's going to pull herself together and save the day, is it? And Malfoy's over-estimated his advantage, he thinks the Death Eaters think he's one of them, but the Death Eaters don't care. It's to do with Voldemort and his obsession with immortality – Malfoy's going to be sacrificed for Voldemort!"

Remus and Professor McGonagall shot each other horrified looks.

"Is there anyone else who can help them?"

Harry swallowed, before delivering his next word, "Snape."

Remus almost hissed, and Professor McGonagall's teeth actually bared.

"He's on our side."

"WHAT?" 

Harry ignored Remus' yelled interjection, "Professor Dumbledore said so, and I believe him."

"He killed the Professor, Harry. The Professor was wrong."

"No, he was right. Professor Dumbledore told me so tonight!"

He was aware that both Remus and McGonagall were shooting him some very funny looks. He told them all about going back in time.

"Back in -? But why didn't you get him to change the future?" yelped Remus. "Why didn't you tell him about what happened on the tower? Why did it still turn out the way it did?"

Harry compressed his mouth into a grim, straight line. There was no point in talking about that now: not unless he just wanted to end up sobbing and raging and kicking things as he had before. "And it gets worse! Scrimgeour knows that Voldemort, the Horcruxes and the Death Eaters will all be down in the Chamber." He raised his voice and shouted over the roar of the battle, _"He plans to get what kids he can out of Hogwarts but then raze the school to the ground on top of everyone in the Chamber – burying them, crushing them under the school's weight!"_

Even Terry Boot wobbled at that one.

"What?" screeched Professor McGonagall. "But I've got three of my students down there!"

"He's prepared to sacrifice them. He says he has 'responsibilities'!"

"_Responsib -?_ Well, I'd like to see him try! Raze the castle? He won't have a hope!"

"They will be dismantling the wards to send in help, Minerva – when they do that, they can get in!"

"And? I'd like to see an idiot Auror tackle Hogwarts!"

"They won't be using Aurors."

Harry's voice had gone strangely hollow and the two professors cast swift glances at him only to see him staring blankly toward the dark horizon. "They're not using Aurors to raze Hogwarts." Harry pointed, "They're using _them."_

The two professors turned.

What they saw was so astonishing that they, Justin, Terry, and even the Pygmy Puff crazed children, all stopped.

Far specks in the sky, but closing at a terrifying speed, were creatures which looked like something carved in stone on the walls of a Mediaeval cathedral: monstrous figures of dark imagination, designed to scare any sinners off the easy, wide road to Hell and back on the rocky path toward Heaven. They had long heads, bat-like wings, rib-cage bodies, great, red, glowing eyes, the heavy, springy, muscular hind-limbs of dragons but the fleshy shoulders and even more powerful hairy fore-limbs of giants, ending in horribly human-looking hands.

From their nostrils fumed a haze of flame and super-heated air, ready to blaze out in a fireball at an enemy. And what they could not raze with fire, they could simply tear apart.

Next to him, Harry heard Remus gasp, and he explained.

"Part-dragon, part-Thestral, part-giant. Product of a secret, artificial, experimental breeding program by the Ministry. Frighteningly fast, immensely strong and fire-breathing: Heliopaths."

xxxxx

In the red, exploding, spell-strewn night, they were still stuck on the outcrop of low battlement, with moaning Inferi below, rattling Dementors above, howling giants flinging rocks, and about fifty Puffs and their blood-crazed kids – Puff-Puppets, Remus had termed them - hemming them in and forcing them back into a corner.

Harry had not even had the time to tell anyone about Mrs. Weasley, what had really happened to Ron, what had really happened to Luna, to tell Remus about Tonks, about how she had only ever pursued him under the compulsion of Imperius.

Part of him wondered if Remus might actually be relieved.

There was a door at their back – the reason why they'd picked that corner – but they could not get it open. Remus and McGonagall had both tried desperately, but not even for the Head of Hogwarts would it open. The castle had sealed itself against entrance.

The Puff-Puppets, relentlessly pushing forward against Protegos, fingers flexed into claw-shapes, eyes wild, mouths snarling – _God, was that Lavender Brown?_ – were now only about two yards away. With spittle flying and teeth bared, they reached forward against the invisible protective arc, trying to snatch and rip.

Their Puffs hissed on their shoulders, ready to spring forward themselves.

Harry had the unconscious cat stuffed limply down the front of his zipped up jacket, a squishy bundle of warm black fur with an ugly little, squashed-up face and a solidly beating heart. He wasn't sure, but he thought he recognised it from the train-ride into school. He thought it was Millicent Bulstrode's.

He'd scooped it up as he'd shuffled backwards. Leaving it there, defenceless, had simply been unthinkable.

Behind Harry, Remus was now reduced to physically tugging, pushing and kicking at the door in an effort to get it open.

If they couldn't get off the battlement, then within seconds they were going to be torn to pieces, wrenched limb from limb.

Harry was roaring at one of their attackers, "When you wake up and come to your senses, Finnegan, I'm going to kick your arse in!"

The door popped open behind them, unlocked from the inside and Neville's round face appeared, "Thought I could hear your shouting, Harry. Recognise it anywhere." 

They tumbled through the door, bolting it even as a surge of attackers thumped against it.

They were now inside the castle, on a landing inside the Entrance Hall, half-way up the moving staircases. It wouldn't have been a bad position - if the moving staircases hadn't been swirling around wildly, disorientated by the emergency wards. They were swinging about like colossal, out of control, crane derricks, careening about randomly, occasionally crashing into each other with mighty reverberating clangs that saw huge chunks of marble fly off to smash into the walls.

A lot of the corridors and landings which had led off the stairs were now reduced to broken-off stubs of stone as the milling staircases had smashed the ends off them.

There was no staircase from their stub of landing.

The Entrance Hall floor, fifty feet below them, was thick with Puffs.

The air rang with screams and spell-explosions.

Above, about and below them on the various landings, were herds of children: either seething throngs of Pygmy-Puppets or tight little knots of unaffected children, desperately trying to hold them off.

About the walls, the paintings roared advice to the struggling, Puff-less children – _'duck', 'look out behind you!', 'over here, to me!'. _Portraits raced from picture to picture, traveling the walls to reach children. The ghosts looked ahead down passages for them, shouting if it was all clear, floating through walls to see if rooms were safe.

Peeves floated overhead, screeching and throwing bits of chipped-off staircase at clumps of Puff-Puppets – Harry rather suspected that Peeves might secretly be enjoying that part.

Harry could not see Phineas Nigellus – he hadn't seen him since he'd called for him on his miniature and he had not come.

Away on another smashed-off bit of landing, Filch was thrashing his arms about, shouting. Harry wasn't sure what at, until he saw a knot of Puffs draw back from something there: the dead body of a scrawny, dust coloured cat - Mrs. Norris.

Harry could hear Filch's scream from here.

The Puffs stared up at Filch and sprang, knocking him sprawling so that he got tangled up in an empty suit of armour which fell apart under him. The screaming, sobbing, raging Filch had to abandon the body of his beloved cat and limp hurriedly off, pursued by Puffs and trailing bits of armour as he went.

A short figure dressed in a bazaar collection of clothing - too many hats and purple socks – wriggled to the front of a knot of besieged Puff-less children and pushed a hand in the direction of the besiegers, palm-forward, like a stop-sign.

The besiegers were pushed back as though by an invisible moving blockade.

Easy.

It was Dobby.

Harry turned to Remus, "Where are the other elves!"

House-elves had immense magical power, Dobby had once sent Lucius Malfoy shooting down a flight of stairs just by pointing a finger at him.

"They're in the kitchen, Harry."

"_What?_ Why don't they _help!"_

"The elves can't help us, Harry. Wizards have trained them too thoroughly over the millennia: they can't attack wizards - and the Puff-children are still wizards, and the Puff-children won't let the elves attack the Puffs!The elves are in a terrible state. Wizards are attacking wizards – _the elves don't know what to do!"_

Dobby was an exception. Dobby thought for himself and would take action accordingly. But Dobby was practically one of a kind.

Harry expected no further elf-help tonight.

Below them, a thicket of Puppets hurled themselves repeatedly against the great double-doors leading to the Great Hall, the doors resounding under them.

"What's happening?" Harry shouted as he nodded toward the closed oak doors.

"Hagrid, Madame Hooch, Sinistra, Poppy – a lot of the teachers were in there when the Puffs went off! We had all the children in the Great Hall as a security measure, and the Professors were patrolling it as the Puff attacks started. It was chaos, half of the Puff-children ran out screaming, but half stayed. They Puff-less children left in there are barricaded with the Professors on the dais, behind the overturned teachers' refectory table. The door's slammed shut to stop any more Puff-children getting back in to re-enforce the others!"

Harry looked about him. They had been rescued by a strange crew, the eccentric mix of which made Harry start – not to mention the fact that they were all in night-attire. Neville's presence - dressed in red and yellow checked pyjamas which Harry just _knew_ his formidable grandmother had bought for him - was a given but … Theodore Nott and Malfoy's two troglodyte companions, Crabbe and Goyle? Nott evidently slept in worn, baggy pyjama-bottoms and a faded, loose t-shirt and was wearing a pair of well-worn trainers instead of slippers, but Crabbe and Goyle were wearing pristine, long, traditional, white night-gowns, matching Wee-Willie-Winky night-caps, and fleecy bed-socks.

Harry tried not to laugh hysterically – more hysteria than laughter.

Neville now had a nasty gash on his forehead, almost in the same place where Harry had his infamous scar. Nott was bleeding from what looked like a slash to the side of his face. Crabbe and Goyle appeared unmarked – though Harry found himself fighting off the uncharitable thought that they probably had such thick skins that any Pygmy Puff that tried to bite them would probably break its teeth! Any missile flung at them, would probably just bounce off!

Neville looked apprehensive but determined, Nott was jittering with nerves, teeth chattering. Crabbe and Goyle were simply looking about them almost puzzled – if their faces could ever register anything so intellectual as puzzlement. On them it was more like a gormless incomprehension. Both Neville and Nott held their wands gripped in their fists, Nott's wand shaking with nervous tension. In contrast, the lumpen, mute, stolid Crabbe and Goyle had abandoned their wands and instead grasped their beaters' bats in fists the size of Keepers' mitts.

It was odd: until then Harry simply hadn't realised just how _big_ Crabbe and Goyle were – they were practically gigantic: totally un-natural for schoolboys.

Enormous, they looked absurd in their Dickensian-style nighties and caps.

No-one bothered to comment on how weird the rescue group was: the unappreciated Gryffindor whom the Hat had wanted to put in Hufflepuff, the bitter, outsider Slytherin, and two great lumps whom the Hat might just as well have played dip-dip-dip with for all the difference it made.

The situation was way beyond comments such as, 'what are you doing here?'.

Help, was help.

There was no stable staircase connecting to their bit of landing. With a jolt, Harry realised that the unlikely rescue crew must have heard the desperate screaming of people trying to escape danger, and had leapt across the swingeing staircases, jumping from crashing step to crashing step, risking being decapitated or crushed at every go, until they'd got across to open the door.

If the situation hadn't been so utterly desperate, they'd have been writing odes to the sheer heroism of it. As it was, there was no time to even mention it because the door behind them was now shuddering in its frame as their pursuers battered at it.

They had to get off that landing.

Away on the floor far below them, flung wherever it may land, was a single, abandoned child's slipper. Harry was gripped by the horrible, chilling realisation that there might yet still be a torn-off foot inside it.

Below them the thick, swarming, pink and purple carpet of Puffs seemed to be milling about like technicolour rats on a rubbish dump. The milling rats parted, to reveal the fallen, oddly angled body of what had been Professor Flitwick.

Harry felt a sick lurch: there was no way out there.

Off on a fourth-floor landing, Harry distinctly saw Ernie McMillan – pristine, blue pyjamas, freshly ironed, and a tartan, woolen night-coat - shooting a string of Stupefies into a mass of Pygmy-Puppets as a shaking Hannah Abbott – frilly, nylon nighty - held them off with a very wobbly Protego. Even from this range, Harry could see that Hannah was crying with fright, but still doing it anyway. He gritted his teeth though, because Ernie was aiming his arms around a lot before he threw each spell, as though somehow striking postures would make a difference. Typical Ernie, Harry thought, he hadn't changed, he had been just the same in D.A. training: flourishing his wand unnecessarily, allowing his opponent time to get under his guard.

Screaming and movement and action was everywhere.

Trapped on another landing, Richie Coote and Jimmy Peakes – both baggy bottoms and t-shirts boys - were guarding a gaggle of terrified first-years, holding both their wands and beater's bats in their hands as they backed up along the landing, being pressed hard by a thicket of Puppets. A springing Puff leapt under Jimmy's wand arm and moved to bite him, only to be smashed aside at the last second by Richie's bat. The Puff squealed and fell to the floor, whereupon Richie walloped it mercilessly again and again with overhead blows until it stopped.

On a third-floor, isolated, smashed-off stub of landing, was a tall, smoke-blackened figure dressed in a peculiar array of protective clothing: Quidditch goggles, Quidditch boots, an ill-fitting dueling vest, and a pair of thick dragon-hide gauntlets that reached half-way up its arms. Suited up, it was impossible to really even tell what sex it was.

Puffs were leaping at the figure and landing on it, trying to bite through the vest, gauntlets, boots, but the figure was angrily snatching them off just as fast, gripping them in its fist and remorselessly Incendio-ing them at point-blanc range, it's hands protected from the heat and flames by the dragon-hide, giving the Puffs no chance to escape.

The smoke from the screaming, immolated Puffs caused filthy streaks across the figure's face.

When another Puff reared up, the figure drew its foot back and kicked it, then stomped heavily down, reducing the Puff to a broken-ribbed pulp with one ferocious stamp.

The figure snapped its goggles back onto its smoke-smudged forehead to get a clearer view of the battle, and snorted with disgust. "Bloody hell, this sodding school, if it's not potions, it's Puffs!"

For one quite mad second, Harry thought it was Ron – but of all people it was Romilda Vane.

She looked about her and saw a clutch of third-years trapped on an adjacent landing, the one with the Hogwarts Shield on the wall. For a moment it looked it like she wasn't going to do anything about it – she was safe enough where she was, isolated on her stub of now Puff-free flooring – but then … "Oh – _fucking fuck!" … _She bounced onto a passing staircase, crouched as it swept her along, and then leapt off it, landing on the corridor-section on all fours and shooting the attacking Puff-Puppets in the back. Three Puffs leapt at her, and Harry half-yelped as he thought she'd lost it: she'd got one with an _Incendio_ in mid air, but the other two were on her. She shot one with a point-blanc _Impedimentia_, wand actually touching the furball as she fired, but the other one was actually on her wand arm and there was no chance and –

Romilda Vane grabbed it with her free hand, bared her teeth, and ferociously bit down hard on its squealing head at the same time as yanking its body away from her.

There was a strange crunching, stretching, snapping and … Romilda Vane literally bit the head off a Pygmy Puff.

"How utterly _horrid_," complained Justin.

She spat the bits away, wiping her grimacing, bloodied mouth with the back of her dragon-gloved hand.

She had given no warning, partaken in no 'fighting-fair', held to no gentleman's dueling rules, she just had a brute determination to beat the odds to get what she wanted and would fight as dirty as it took.

Harry noticed that every time she killed a Puff, a nearby Puppet about her stopped and seemed to somehow wake up, look about it as though it had roused from sleepwalking, then give a sharp little cry, backing off from everything about it, then turning to run.

Turning back into a child.

Sometimes the fleeing figures were brought down by the surrounding Puppets before they could get away.

Despite their perilous situation, Harry and the group about him still stared after Romilda with expressions ranging from the politely querulous to the downright astonished.

Professor McGonagall coughed, "Well, her name _does_ mean _Magnificent Battle-Maiden_. I imagine that the person who decided to call her that must have known something was coming."

The whump of the door behind them quaking in its frame jerked them all back to attention.

Harry looked wildly over his shoulder. The door was now leaking dust with every resounding shudder. He turned back to the scene of chaos before, above and below him.

"We're getting off this platform," announced Remus, grimly.

xxxx

Three minutes later, their small group was inching its way along what had been a sheer blank wall, with Remus and McGonagall in the lead, charming blocks of masonry half-way out from it to form a series of makeshift stepping stones, the smaller children mixed up with Neville and company in the middle, and Harry bringing up the rear.

It was a terrifying business. The 'steps' were less than a foot deep, the wall was sheer and the drop was vertiginous. They had scarce opportunity to use magic as most of them didn't dare use their wands, they were too busy using both hands to try and cling, shivering, to whatever scarce handholds the bare wall offered. Almost all the children were further hampered by flapping slippers and loose, trailing night-wear.

Neville had his wand clamped grimly between his teeth as he shuffled sideways in his slippers and pyjamas.

A lot of the smaller children were crying.

Crabbe and Goyle could scarcely stay on the steps, they were so bulky they were forced to lean back as they went and were in permanent danger of toppling. Once Crabbe did falter badly, losing his balance, arms starting to windmill wildly as his centre of gravity shifted against him. Goyle simply flung out a massive arm, caught Crabbe in the back and slammed him into the wall, whereupon Crabbe whimpered a little like a nervous piglet.

"Oi! You two! Will you stop messing about and climb properly!"

Crabbe and Goyle looked dumbly along at the angrily yelling Theodore Nott, looked at each other, exchanged puzzled, mewling sounds, but then followed orders and carried on traversing, expressions creased up in what, for them, was ferocious concentration.

There was noise and screaming and spellfire everywhere.

Below them, a hoard of Puffs and Puppets hissed and seethed, the Puppets hurling large chips of smashed staircase up at them, trying to knock them off whereupon they'd fall fifty feet to their deaths, smacking into the unyielding stone floor.

In turn, when possible, the Puppets were shot at by the Puff-less children on the various other landings, trying to put the Puppets off their aim.

Face to the wall, Harry almost laughed as he caught a glimpse of a boy with a Self-shooting Catapult periodically dodging from behind the cover of Richie Coote to rocket gobstones into the Puppets, the stones painfully punching into them at speed and knocking them over.

Then he stopped laughing as the door behind Harry finally burst open, hanging off its shattered hinges at a crazy angle.

Propelled uncontrollably forward by their sheer volition, the first in the ranks of the pursuing Puppets toppled over the edge of the short section of landing which remained, screaming as they windmilled through the air, smacking face-first into the stone-flagged floor fifty feet below.

They hit with a dull thud, a flat, wet, smacking impact, the power of which could almost be felt. Broken bones, battered muscles, split skin. Dead.

Harry felt the rush of breath in his lungs go cold with shock.

Looked like he wouldn't get the chance to kick Seamus Finnegan's arse in after all.

He didn't have the time to consider the horror of it as the remaining throng began to hurriedly scale along the narrow stepping stones. They were growling and snarling, moving fast, seemingly with no fear of falling, driven on by compulsion.

Only when some of few among them occasionally lost their footing, slipped and hopelessly tumbled, did some inner humanity rear up and they reverted to screaming, terrified children, seconds before they died.

The remainder – still freed of all natural fear – were moving much faster than Harry's group, whose feet were still slipping and fingers scrabbling.

They were going to be caught.

Harry had no doubt what would happen: there would be no elegant spellfire or sophisticated maneuvering. The Puff-Puppets would simply grab them, even though they would all tumble to their deaths.

The lead Puppet – a boy Harry thought he recognised from fourth-year Ravenclaw – reached out, snarling, moving hurriedly from stone to stone.

Harry was terrified at his speed.

But Harry's group were already going as fast as they could without falling!

The snarling Ravenclaw fourth-year was closing fast, almost within arm's reach now.

And then Harry froze. Because on a landing over to one side of the Entrance Hall, Ernie McMillan had made one pompous arm-wave too many, had taken too long to get off a spell, and a screaming Puff had bounced under Hannah Abbott's ever-weakening Protego and lunged at Ernie's throat, catching him there. Ernie had flailed, panicking, tripping backwards on his trailing night-coat and his foot slipped on the fractured edge of the broken-off landing and he went over.

Taking a horrified Hannah with him as he instinctively flung out an arm one last time, trying to arrest his fall.

Harry shouted and lurched for his wand, but he couldn't get the angle and -

The blond, pink, plump-cheeked, blue-eyed Hannah looked totally disbelieving. The expression on Ernie's face as he fell backwards was one of fright mixed with sheer outrage. They seemed to fall in slow-motion, as though_ something_ must surely happen to save them. But then the camera speeded up and they both smacked fatally into the stone flooring scores of feet below, sculls cracking backward into the floor with an irretrievable shattering. The sea of Puffs rolled back for a moment, quieting, almost surprised, but then surged upon them, biting and screeching, covering their bodies with a blanket of churning, seething fur.

Harry stared down, mouth open in incredulous horror.

"Harry, _shoot!"_ yelled Remus.

Harry jerked his head up. The fourth-form Ravenclaw boy was almost upon him.

Shoot the boy? 

"Harry _SHOOT!"_

But he could see the boy's wild, rolling eyes – _God, was that Stewart Ackerley?_

Stewart Ackerley reached out to grab Harry Potter just as there was a yell of _'REDUCTO!'_ and the sets of steps at Stewart Ackerley's feet turned to dust as Neville, wand gripped in his fist, swung around wildly off the wall, suspended only by the mighty arm of Goyle, getting the angle for the shot. Goyle then crunched Neville back against the safety of the wall and Neville wobbled wildly as he occupied an empty step.

Stewart Ackerley crashed through the air, eyes wide with shock, but this time Remus could get the angle and could save Stewart in a way that he hadn't been able to save Ernie or Hannah.

Stewart landed in a stunned heap but Remus had slowed the fall so he had not been killed.

On the ground, the Puffs did not attack him as he was still one of their own.

"That was a close one!" Neville gave a high, trembling laugh.

Harry could feel Remus staring at him and could not look back.

Their group made their way along the wall, protected now by the _Reducto_'d gap, and they made the safety of Romilda Vane's landing.

They were still under assault though, the Puffs there were bounding at them and Puppets having to be hurled back by Impedimentias.

A phalanx of Puppets seemed to gather themselves, and then rushed at them in a group.

Neville turned to Theodore Nott and, though still shaking from his wall endeavour, stuttered out: _"Hit it."_

In a maneuver which looked practised, Neville dropped to one knee, facing away from Nott and toward the charging Puppets. From a pocket, Nott hauled out the triangular glass block Harry had seen with him on the train.

Nott leveled the glass triangle on the tripod of Neville's shoulder, the flat end of the triangle toward their attackers, and put his wand to the pointed end which faced him: "_STUPEFY!"_

Neville grimaced and rocked under the power of the spell as it ricocheted and multiplied through the prism, refracting, splitting off into many rays, one spell converted into many simultaneous ones.

The rays shot out of the flat end of the prism in a fanning blast of light and whammed straight into the onrushing Puppets.

It was the equivalent of a spell machine gun.

They had only had a few days in which to reactivate Dumbledore's Army – but clearly Neville had not wasted a minute of it.

The first three ranks of surging Puppets fell to the floor in a slumped, unconscious, tangled heap. Behind them, the remaining thickly packed, oncoming Puppets could not stop in time and hurtled into them, toppling over.

Nott looked ashen and knackered from having expended that much energy in one go, but it had done the job.

The hurtling Puppets were now a threshing, piled-up melee on the floor and were being picked off by explosive, point-blanc Impedimentia's and Stupefies.

In the crash of short-range spellfire, Romilda Vane turned wildly to Harry, "Where's that lanky, red-headed mate of yours?" 

Harry's mouth moved silently.

"He's dead," announced Remus bluntly, having heard it from McGonagall.

Romilda momentarily looked like she'd been slapped, then she blinked rapidly, shaking her head as though to angrily clear her vision. Saying nothing she turned and furiously blasted a Puff out of mid air with a spell so strong that it shot a chip out of the corridor wall.

She yanked her borrowed Quidditch goggles down so that no-one could see her eyes.

Harry stared at her. A quiet little jolt, like a mis-step in the dark. You never knew what anyone felt really. Not unless they said it. And sometimes they didn't say it. Not until it was all far too late.

He wanted to scream again but didn't dare because if he started he might never stop.

A lot of people had lost tonight. Some had lost their chances. Some had lost their lives.

He looked about at the milling, screaming, clawing, roaring, spell-shot pandemonium.

The Hogwarts' cats were hissing and spitting, claws out, fur on end and canines bared, calling upon their feral heritage as they went at the Puffs. But they were outnumbered. Some of them were already dead. Others were rolling end on end, covered in biting Puffs. A few were winning though, and punctured Puffs littered the floor, with several cats leaping about with struggling Puffs actually clenched within their clamped jaws.

If this was a Muggle war, the cats would need air-support.

But the owls were in the owlery, tethered by their jesses.

Harry looked dazedly about him: the platform they were on had a corridor leading from it that might allow them to the owlery, but it was thick with milling Puppets, rising groggily from their Stupefies and Impedimentias.

Some springing Puffs got through and Remus killed them: no magic, just brutally stomping on them with heel of his shoe. Harry would once have never have believed such ruthlessness of Remus, but he recalled him from the wedding – how grey and tired he had been, but with a fleck of new hardness about the eyes. Remus had changed, Remus had been forced to change, forced to adapt under the pressure of knowing first-hand what the likes of Fenrir Greyback were really capable of.

Greyback had damaged Remus just by existing, and he had sworn to finish the job by killing him.

In response, Remus had been forced to harden up or die.

And that was what war did to people: it made them ruthless. It forced them to step outside themselves and become someone else, just for that time it took.

It made them become killers.

Because they had to fight back with whatever it took against an enemy who was trying to kill them. Because if the other guy was trying to kill you, and you let him, then who was left to fight for those who weren't able to defend themselves and who were depending on you to do it for them?

Life wasn't a fairy story.

Turn the other cheek in a war, and you just got that slapped too.

Sometimes, some people had to get their hands dirty, accept responsibility for who they were and what they'd done, deal with it and carry on, knowing they'd done the best they could with what they'd had however awfully it had turned out.

Romilda Vane's screech ripped the air.

"For God's sake, get in the game, Potter!" 

And Harry ripped the Hogwarts shield off the wall and used it. Roaring, he ran towards the Puppets and gave those behind him only two choices: keep up with him and protect him, or abandon him.

They pounded at his heels.

He mowed into the Puppets protected by the Hogwarts shield – the Four Houses gathered about the letter 'H' – and smashed through them in a welter of spellfire and yelling.

They were on the long third-floor corridor now, and Harry now knew just where he was going.

He dived up the still-intact back-corridor and raced up the stairs, panting, then out along the seventh-floor corridor, along the stone passage toward an area with a tapestry on one side of the hallway and a blank stone wall on the other, yelling at full volume even as he neared it. "No time! _Just give me a way to the owlery!"_

And a mahogany door instantly appeared, far quicker than it ever had before, and Harry and his group lunged through it, a tangle of arms and legs as they all fought to get through at once. Remus and Professor McGonagall forced the younger students through, even as they hurled defensive spells back down the passageway at their now recuperating enemy.

Harry felt himself barged forward through the tight wedge of bodies as someone rammed him, putting their shoulder to him and shoving him through, toppling through after him.

"For God's sake, Potter! Put your bloody back into it, you sodding little slacker!"

Romilda Vane's repertoire of swearwords was as restricted as her repertoire of spells, but in both cases she made up for it with the sheer vehemence of her delivery.

The door slammed shut with a _Colloportus_ from Remus, just as their pursuers reached it.

They looked about them: hauling for breath and stitch-ridden after their panic-fueled run; they were now locked in a very dark tunnel.

Crabbe or Goyle, Harry wasn't sure which, gave an uncertain little whimper.

Some of the younger children were openly crying.

They all jolted and gasped as torches, set high on the walls, magically ignited to produce a flickering, eerie light. They fell to silence as they saw they were in a high, narrow, stone passageway, lit by the shifting flames. There were stone snakes carved into the walls, their heads pointing the way down the passageway; in the flickering torchlight, they seemed to undulate. The passage narrowed ahead of them, before turning a slight corner so they could not see where it was taking them.

"Are you _sure_ this castle's on our side?" whispered Terry Boot, still panting from his run.

There was a _thump!_ on the door behind them, and they all started forward, hurrying down the corridor, Harry leading the way.

It turned out to be surprisingly easy, with the floor very smooth underfoot. The passage twisted and turned ahead of them, but they followed it.

"Why are we going to the owlery?" whispered Terry to Harry, looking nervously up and about him as though he still had reservations that the passage might yet somehow attack them.

"Because the owls can take out the Puffs!" hissed a voice Harry recognised as Theodore Nott's. "And when that's done, the kids they control will break down and drop out of the fight. Kill enough Puffs and we can still win this."

"Good," said Neville, who was still holding his side from a stitch. "If we're lucky, it might take us straight there."

Harry said nothing, he'd long given up trusting to luck.

He was right not to.

The Room of Requirement had done its best, but with garbled instructions and no time for the usual lengthy clarification, it had taken Harry at his word and 'given him a way to the owlery', but not taken him all the way into it.

The small door at the end of the passageway – it was so low that only the smallest children didn't need to stoop to pass through it, and both Crabbe and Goyle had a terribly tight squeeze – led out onto a small circular battlement at the top of a turret, only just big enough to hold them all.

They _Colloportus_'d the door shut behind them.

You could get to the owlery from there – which was all Harry had asked for – but only by dropping down onto a flying-buttress below them, and moving along it to a narrow walkway that led to the aviary.

A walkway that the giants were bombarding with rocks.

Crabbe and Goyle gave low, rumbling growls at the sight of the giants. Dull eyes narrowing, each holding their beater's bat firmly in one hand and tapping it against the other open palm.

"Oh, cut it out, you two!" snapped Nott.

Crabbe and Goyle looked abashed at him, and mewed like a couple of dogs who'd just been told-off.

A little girl standing between them gave a high wailing scream and pointed at the sky.

Dementors floated overhead, their coldness kept out by the still-standing wards, but also there surged and swooped the monstrous creations of the Ministry: Heliopaths.

"_Bloody hell!"_ cried Terry.

The walkway to the owlery was scorched black in patches – evidently the wards were weakening and the Heliopaths had hurled fire there in one of their random attacks.

Harry saw that away in the night, at the edges of the forest, the centaurs still stood, shivering with uncertainty.

Bane was still waving his arms in the direction of the forest, but nobody moved toward it, even though they didn't move forward. Instead, their flanks rippling, their back legs kicking, they pawed the ground in anxiety, heads and voices high, hair being tossed from side to side.

In a field below them, a small figure screeched and gestured against them – firing random spells.

It was Umbridge and her crazy fear of the centaurs – of anything non-human and magical.

The centaurs ignored her, she was an irrelevancy.

"They could stop the giants! Why don't they come? _Why don't they come!_" yelled Harry.

But he knew why: fate. The centaurs believed in it. He recalled Bane: _'We are sworn not to set ourselves against the heavens. Have we not read what is to come in the movements of the planets?'. _They were fatalists. They believed that what was to come, was defeat for those who opposed Voldemort. Harry knew that now. He remembered one of the first things he'd ever heard them say: _Mars is bright tonight. _

Mars.

War.

And they believed Voldemort would win this war and Voldemort had promised them everything. _And all they had to do to get it, was stay out of a fight they did not believe could be won anyway …_

On the parapet, all about him shot startled looks as the door behind them shook: a barrage of Puppets had hit it from the other side.

"Oh -! _For God's sake!"_ yelped Terry Boot, caught between a half-laughing, disbelieving anger, and a high, shaky fear.

Harry looked back: they were less than fifty yards from the owlery, fifty yards from unleashing help, but they could not reach it.

He ran to the edge of the battlement where the giants were hurling rocks at the base of the wall and took a look, wand in hand.

"You can't take them down, Harry," Remus yelled. "Even going for the eyes with a Conjunctivitus Curse doesn't really stop them!"

"I can't believe this!" Harry screeched, "This isn't even the real fight! That'll happen when Hermione and Malfoy get stuck in that Chamber, we need to get in there and help them – and we can't even do that!"

The door thumped anew, and a lot of the little children skittered back, crying, trying to hide behind the teachers and the tall fifth and sixth-formers.

They were all trapped. None of them could get off the platform.

Above them, a Heliopath shot a random bolt of fire and everyone ducked.

Over his shoulder, Harry glimpsed a flash of ginger fur and swiveled toward it with a leap of hope: it was Crookshanks, racing along the walkway towards the owlery! But then a howling lurch of horror as the first four from a pursuing group of about twenty Puffs brought Crookshanks down from behind.

Harry swiveled back as the door shuddered on its hinges now, iron nails rattling loosely in their planks.

The whole group on the battlement, wands out and gazes locked to the doorway, instinctively stepped back away from it.

And one of the small children clustered behind them fell backward off the battlement.

Remus half turned and got off a spell that slowed the fall, but the child still hit the ground with an almost reverberating thump, and the giants saw it. They closed in.

Harry and his group tried to shoot the giants away, but was hopeless.

Behind them, they heard the door give way and it now hung off its hinges, with Puffs and Puppets fighting their way through, flailing against each other in the narrow gap.

Away on the walkway, Crookshanks rolled over and over, hissing, trying to throw off the increasing numbers of screeching, biting Puffs.

A Puff on the battlement broke forward and sprang straight at Harry's throat.

A group of Puppets lurched out of the jam at the doorway and hurtled towards them.

Umbridge was still squealing and shooting at the centaurs.

There was a high-pitched scream of pure terror from the child on the ground, and the answering screams of those little children still on the battlements: the screaming of foals.

And then time seemed to slow and it all just … happened.

A great rushing, swooshing sound; a thick blanket of black, arching swiftly through the night; a rumbling upon the earth.

Ron had once mentioned Agincourt, referring to it – as wizards are wont to do – as though it had simply been won by magic and that Muggles had somehow just happened to be there, milling about, making an embarrassing mess of things whilst the wizards got on with the real business.

But that was not what had happened at all.

It had been won by five thousand, thoroughly un-magical, small, grubby men, out-numbered four-to-one, standing their ground before an onslaught of onrushing, mounted, armoured and armed French knights and … defeating them with bits of wood: arrows.

A massive flight of arrows sliced into the Giants who then stumbled around in squealing confusion. Across at the edge of the forest, there was a huge movement, like an avalanche breaking away. Half the centaurs had broken rank of their own individual accord. Nobody leading, no-one giving particular orders, just all acting in unspoken concert. They swept down upon the giants, shooting as they rode, trampling over the shrieking Umbridge.

Foals were screaming and 'fate' be damned.

Moving as a tight group, they ploughed through the Giants, scattering them, catching up the crying child and carrying it to safety in a single wave of sleek-moving muscle.

Then the cat, forgotten in Harry's jacket, abruptly struggled awake from the earlier _Stupefy_ and reached out a slashing paw, catching the Puff springing at Harry in mid-flight. With cat-claws dug in, Millicent Bulstrode's cat fought its way out of Harry's jacket and sank its fangs straight into the Puff as the two rolled over and over on the floor, the cat hissing, clawing, biting and raking.

A single cat versus a single Puff?

The Puff's eyes bulged as it screeched and struggled to escape.

Over on the walkway, a streak of black and white leapt through the air: a cat in a 'tuxedo', Mr. Tibbles, the James Bond of Kneazles.

With an economic efficiency, he leapt over the intervening Puffs and landed at Crookshanks' side, biting straight through the necks of many of the Puffs there, shaking them and throwing them off.

Crookshanks - back in the match, Puffs sent flying – hurtled again for the owlery.

Mr. Tibbles swerved about to face the onrush of remaining Puffs as an astounding figure lurched from the opposite end of the walkway.

It looked like a clumsy, clanking, walking suit of armour.

Which it was: Filch.

Utterly Puff-proof.

He had never cared for the Hogwarts children, he had possibly never even particularly cared much for the school, but he had loved his cat.

And he wanted revenge.

He had dressed up in the armour he had earlier become entangled with and had set off along the many secret passages he knew, aiming for the owlery to release the owls.

Now he clanked down the walkway, ignoring the Puffs where he could not stomp on them but he drove them off Mr. Tibbles – who was at least another cat, if not the beloved Mrs. Norris.

On the battlement Harry felt the iron grip of a Puff-Puppet on him as it grabbed for his throat.

The platform was now thick with them, and all about was close-quarters fighting.

Below him, Crookshanks raced to the owlery door, leapt up, caught the latch in his front paws and hung there, back legs kicking on empty air until the latch dropped under his heavy weight and he sped in, with Mr. Tibbles and Filch alternately racing and clanking in after him, cutting the owls from their jesses.

Harry and his group struggled madly on the battlement, it was hand-to-hand now, and the Puppets were horrifyingly strong.

And then … owls exploded out of the owlery.

An eruption of feathers and wingbeats and screeching fury.

The owls stormed down, attacked the Pygmy-Puffs, talons ripping, beaks tearing, and every second a child broke free of the mental grip of its now-dead Puff and, shocked and crying, either collapsed sobbing or ran away in tears.

But the Puppet at Harry's neck was still there and his neck was almost snapping.

" …idiotic, foolish, consorting with the impure; an ugly, stupid boy who is churlish at school and casts insults upon the noble House of Slytherin …"

The Puppet around Harry's neck was cast back, as were all the remaining others there.

" … a thief and a liar, a vainglory seeking lout who threatens women, who cheats at Quidditch, who rides an unfair broom, who lies to teachers and sneaks about the school showing off with his ludicrously expensive Cloak …"

_Kreacher …?_

"… who cheats in exams by getting extra marks for a spell that no-one else has even been taught in official lessons …"

Behind them, the Durmstrang boat broke the surface of the lake, erupting prow first, shooting almost vertically out of the water like a surfacing submarine. Too big and too powerful for any number of underwater Inferi to take down.

Through the sky, the Beauxbatons carriage surged towards them, radiating a blinding light that reduced the Dementors to dust.

Some very thestralish Heliopaths cantered peaceably about in the sky.

All over the school, as the owls and cats did their job, Puppets awoke and burst into tears, shocked and crying.

" … being invisible to steal from shops and -"

"I never used my Cloak to steal from shops!" squeaked Harry, hand to his half-choked throat.

" … and to spy on the Hogwarts shower rooms of innocent school-maidens."

"I DID _WHAT?"_

"Harry Potter, _Sir_," that last word was pronounced with a sly unctuousness, "did instruct Kreacher – poor, lowly, abused, traduced, compelled to work for the undeserving, Kreacher _- _to 'save the insults till later'." Kreacher, gave a prim, simpering, self-congratulatory little smirk at his next words, "Kreacher chose to do it _now _…"

Dobby was practically the only house-elf who could think for himself, but 'practically' meant not quite the only one.

Kreacher too could think for himself – simply not in a way that Harry usually liked.

Harry noticed that Kreacher was horribly bitten and covered in scratches. A huge gash ran down one side of his rib-cage.

He had been in some terrible Puff-fights.

"The Durmstrang boat, and the carriage?" gasped the rather put-upon sounding Justin Finch-Fletchley, night-coat torn, face bruised, and one slipper missing. "Not that I'm complaining, you understand!"

A small voice yelled from inside Harry's pocket. "For heaven's sake – I've been roaring at Potter for half-an-hour! Is that boy deaf? I went long-range to Durmstrang and Beauxbatons – do you think they'd stand by and do _nothing_ if they knew about all this? All someone had to do was keep their head and remember to ask!"

It was the miniature portrait of Phineas Nigellus.

"I have been trying to tell Potter!" it yelled. "It's hardly my fault if Potter didn't pass the message on!"

The people on the battlements turned to stare at the flustered Harry.

"But I - I! Honest! I -!"

"Mister Potter, you really could have told us!" announced Professor McGonagall, hat askew and a nasty cut on her neck.

"But – he – I -"

Romilda Vane – smoke blackened and hair all over the place – snorted one word: _"Typical!"_

_AURTHOR'S NOTE: a very long chapter and I did consider chopping it up into it's constituent sections but ... the rhythm of the chapter simply played far better as one long piece. I wanted the reader to be under the same sense of increasing pressure as the characters, then suddenly we get that gushing release._

_Hope it worked for you._


	37. Chapter 37

Title: (Chapter 37)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 

**Chapter 37**

"We can't leave! Hermione, Malfoy and Ginny will be in that Chamber. We can't just give up the school!"

"We can't give up the school – or you can't give up the fight?"

They had won the battle against the revealed forces of the Death Eaters – the giants, the Dementors, even the Puffs – but now they were facing the forces of the Ministry, and they were losing.

The Heliopaths were still there, the wards were still being eroded, and the Ministry still planned to collapse the school on top of the Chamber, crushing everything and everyone in it. The Ministry plan was now coming ever-closer, and not just because the wards were fading. The school-children, most of them broken-spirited and sobbing, were being hurriedly evacuated via the known portion of the underground lake. When they sailed away, there would be no reason not to demolish the castle.

The school was being evacuated and Remus was determined to do his duty and get his charges away: Harry could not believe that no-one was making any proper effort to get to the Chamber. That was why he had fought for the school – but now it was just being abandoned anyway, and Malfoy and Hermione and Ginny along with it?

The lake-cavern rang with the clamber and shout of the emergency evacuation.

Even though Harry had actually pointed to the location of the Slytherin secret passage leading to the Chamber, it made no difference: it could not be opened and the Ministry were making no efforts.

"They don't want anyone going into the Chamber, Harry!" cried Remus. "That's the whole point: they want the Death Eaters to think their plan is playing out flawlessly. They don't want the Death Eaters to have reason to abandon the Chamber. They want them all in there so they're all killed when the roof collapses!"

"Then we can use the old tunnel! The one from the girls' toilet!"

"It's _sealed_, Harry!"

Harry had to get into that Chamber: with Malfoy deceived, he and Hermione needed all the help they could get!

Malfoy had limped off to that Chamber to help Hermione, save his family and – though he'd never admit it, save Ginny Weasley – armed only with a wand and belief that he could bluff his way through.

"But what if Scrimgeour's plan doesn't work! What if it doesn't kill Voldemort. It'll take six months to excavate the ruins and count body-parts – if there's anything left. They won't even know if he got away. He could be put there operating in total secrecy for six months because they won't even know if he's alive!" Harry clutched at a possibility, "Voldemort might be gone already for all anyone knows! There wouldn't be any point in crushing the castle!"

"Hardly, Harry. Weapon to annihilate the unworthy? Don't you think we'd have spotted something by now if he'd set it off? He won't go until he's done that, which means he's still there, thinking his grand plan is still in operation. And that's another reason to get him soon: to stop him from setting that weapon off and killing God-knows-who."

Remus shifted to move away and supervise the hasty loading.

The great Durmstrang ship was before them in the underground lake: a floating wooden fortress, its planking and rigging creaking, unassailable by any remaining lake-Inferi. It was the evacuation vessel, a great ark, easily able to take all of the Hogwarts inhabitants in a single swoop, magically able to shrink its exterior to get in and out the lake-cave but with its interior infinitely expandable to take the whole school until all were safely on board.

Harry could see the dark figure of Krum up on the prow, gesticulating, giving orders, directing, helping get everyone safely below decks. He could see Krum looking about anxiously now though, his gestures becoming more abrupt and uneasy: Krum could not see Hermione amongst the evacuees, and Harry knew he was becoming concerned at her continued absence.

Krum would throw a fit when he found out that Hermione was trapped, and that there were no plans to get her on-board the rescue-ship.

Streams of crying children were coursing up the many gang-planks, feet slipping on the wet wood as they hurried along. The owls had already flown to safety, the cats were already on-board, the ghosts had gone to the Shrieking Shack and the portraits had fled to the Ministry where there were now some very packed paintings, with landscapes with rather a lot of figures milling about.

No injured had been left behind – neither pet nor person nor painting nor poltergeist nor phantom - only the dead remained; or those who would shortly be dead when the wards crashed and the castle was razed. Either that, or the weapon went off first and took its toll: the Death Eaters had been on the march to the Chamber for a while, they had to get there sooner or later.

Harry knew that Professor McGonagall was outside on the far shoreline arguing vociferously against Scrimgeour's plan – but Harry had no faith that words would shift him, and the fact that the school was in the act of decamping gave Scrimgeour the advantage. With the children gone, there was no reason not to raze the castle.

Beside Harry was a small group: Neville and Nott shifted uncomfortably, uncertain of what to do; Crabbe and Goyle simply stood next to Nott, looking about them with expressions of – for them – curiosity.

Romilda Vane, Justin and Terry had already gotten on the boat. Justin had looked embarrassed at leaving Harry, but relieved to be gone all the same. Romilda had seen no reason to make excuses: _"I've done my bit, Potter." _Terry had been more abashed: _"Sorry Harry, but …"_

The elves, mostly still crying and shaking, were all aboard – even Dobby who thought Harry would surely follow. The only one not aboard was Kreacher who was at Harry's side. He had refused to go on board the ship for medication, screeching that: _"Master Draco must be helped! It is Kreacher's duty!"_ He now tugged angrily at Harry's sleeve, a hideous picture of dried elf-blood, bites and scratches, his foot stamping, his voice squeaky with outraged indignation, "_On that parapet,_ _Potter spoke of rescuing Master Draco – that was a reason why Kreacher came! Is he going to keep his word or not?"_

Harry caught Remus' arm.

"You're not even going to_ try _for Hermione and Malfoy?"

Remus turned, angry, _"HOW? _What are we supposed to do about it? _We can't get in!"_

"You could stay! You could refuse to let the ship sail – you could refuse to leave and then call Scrimgeour's bluff. Dare him to bring the castle down when most of the school population are still in it!"

"And what if he's not bluffing? What if he'll steel himself to the point, and then do it no matter what the cost because he'll see the ends as having to justify the means?"

Harry faltered, he remembered things Scrimgeour had said: _I have responsibilities, Harry … I can't just walk away from this … I have to think about them, not three children stuck in a Chamber … The school will fall and the Chamber will be destroyed …_

Would Scrimgeour really blow the Chamber knowing there were innocent lives at stake, even if it was the life of every child in the school?

Harry had a horrible feeling he might.

"He won't!" he yelled. "He's a politician - he won't do it! Think of all the parents who'd go wild at him? He'd be kicked out of office!"

"He isn't a politician, Harry. He's an Auror who just happens to be the Minister for Magic. He is a war leader – and he will be ruthless if he sees no other viable option. He will do what he thinks needs to be done in order to achieve what he thinks is right. He's not interested in power, Harry. He never was. He's not in it for himself. He's not like Fudge. He just wants to make sure the job gets done – however dirty it is!"

"But – but there'll be hundreds of parents who -"

"Hundreds of parents for whom you don't seem to have any consideration right now!"

Harry juddered to a halt.

"You're quite willing to put their children in danger – using them as a human shield because it suits _you!_ Look at that boat," Remus waved an arm in the direction of the Durmstrang ship, "do you think for one second that almost every one of those children doesn't want to leave? They're not 'noble'. They're not some samite-pure, selfless warriors in a fairy-story: they're _children!_ They're scared, they want their mothers, and they're not going to stay behind for three kids whom most of them – one way or another – _don't even like!"_

"But you could _make_ the ship stay!"

"But I _won't!_ I have responsibilities too, and my responsibility is to the children on board that vessel – and I'm going to make sure that they are leaving!"

"But the prophecy – I'm supposed to be able to stop him! If we can just get into that Chamber then there might not be any need to blow anything up. That passage from the first floor girls' toilet still exists -"

"If, _if _, _IF!_ There are no 'ifs' – _you can't get in_, we've already been over that. That bathroom passage? You'd need troop of trained trolls to smash your way through – and the Ministry won't give us the use of those, either! And what do you think you could do even if you did get in? How do you think you are supposed to kill Voldemort, Harry?"

Remus glared at Harry now, looking him full in the eye, seeming to come to the point he had really been suppressing, "You couldn't even shoot Stewart Ackerley. Neville had to do it for you because you were scared of risking killing him!" – Neville shuffled, embarrassed. – "Voldemort's one of the most powerful wizards who ever lived. Exactly what do you think you are going to do down in the Chamber, _except die!"_

Harry's mouth moved as if he wanted to speak but he could not find the speech, because what Remus had said was true. But then he had a memory of Luna Lovegood's last words: _'I know you have it somewhere within you to defeat him, Harry … so you had to live …'_

Luna Lovegood had died because she believed Harry had to survive – to live so that he could defeat Voldemort. And what if Scrimgeour's plan didn't work? What if Voldemort did get away? If he didn't try now, then her death was all for nothing.

But exactly what did he think he could do down in the Chamber, except die?

"I can die trying."

xxxxxx

"_Well if prat-faced, I-can-die-trying, nobility-boy wants to get himself topped, far be it from me to stand in his way."_

That had been Nott's version of saying he would help, that he would try and get Harry to the Chamber via the first floor passage.

Neville had already signed up for the trip – _"Deep down, I know my Gran couldn't bear it if I didn't give it a go,"_ and that had triggered Nott.

"But how can we do it, Harry – the passage is sealed." Neville was still worried.

"I think I know how," muttered Nott, glancing at Crabbe and Goyle. "If I didn't have a plan, I wouldn't be going. I don't do lost causes."

"You don't seriously think I'm going to let you do this?" snapped Remus.

"We're Of-Age!" insisted Harry.

"And besides," said Nott, "if it doesn't work and we're still stuck here when the place comes crashing down, then that means that the wards will have finally dropped, which means we can Apparate to safety if we have to."

Crabbe and Goyle, never having passed a single test in anything between them, whimpered and looked beseechingly at Nott.

"Oh al-_right_. You two can side-along!"

Remus had been slightly more re-assured at that semblance of a plan. His exasperation and anger born of fear, now had a tinge of last-minute admiration mixed in with an awful lot of resignation. "Just … just do the best you can. But Harry? – know when to give in, okay? Know when the cause is lost."

Now, three minutes later, they were racing along passageways and back-stairs, towards the girls' toilet on the first floor, Harry clutching Kreacher to him as he ran, with Kreacher irritatingly complaining all the way: _'Oh, to be soiled by the touch of the graceless, ugly, loutish Potter-youth, who even though he is attempting to rescue Master Draco, who has the bearing of a very prince, who has the nobility of his line, who has the beauty of the -'_

"Oh, shut up, Kreacher!"

Nott had Accio'd a flask of some purplish-green stuff from the potions cupboard, catching it as he ran: _"I'm going to look so stupid if this doesn't work…"_

Almost with a screech of heels they rounded into the worst bathroom in Hogwarts: the girls' toilet on the first floor.

The first time Harry had ever seen inside, it had been a collage of dank, dirty depressiveness, and it hadn't improved since. A large, spotted and cracked old mirror. Chipped stone sinks. The paint scratched and flaking on the cubical doors with one hanging off its hinges. It was dully-lit and damp all over.

Nott stepped about the damp floor gingerly, as though he might catch something even though he was wearing trainers.

Even the usually placid Neville looked about warily.

Kreacher looked downright disgusted and went into a litany on … _'oh, the squalor of the impure, the tawdry foulness of the tainted …'_

It looked about the least adventurous place you could imagine.

Harry checked the copper tap and saw the snake engraved there: "This is it."

Nott gestured for Crabbe and Goyle to come closer, "You two," he indicated, "drink this!" And using the flask-top as a makeshift cup he handed a dose of the purplish-green stuff first to Crabbe and then to Goyle.

They gurgled and glugged gluttonously, their toes wriggling delightedly in their now very grubby bedsocks.

"How's this going to get us into the Chamber?" hissed Harry.

"Just shut up and watch," rejoined Nott.

"It's …it's Mandrake juice isn't it?" breathed Neville.

"Yes. And if Quidditch-Boy ever paid attention in Herbology classes," Nott flung a glance at Harry, "he'd know what it's about to do. Well, what it's _hopefully _about to do."

"Oi," hissed Harry, pained, "I pay attention! I passed Herbology! I – er …" Harry ransacked his memory for anything on Mandrake potions, "It's - er … its … er … Mandragora! A powerful restorative! Er … antidotes and transfigurations … er …"

As Harry had rambled on, Neville had stepped progressively further and further back from Crabbe and Goyle who were now grunting dumbly.

Even Kreacher had stopped mumbling about _'the impure'_ and was now watching them suspiciously.

Harry, exasperated at not being able to properly remember what Mandrake juice was all about, flung them a frustrated glance: "Don't those two ever _speak?"_

Nott, standing next to Harry and looking up at the now itching and scratching Crabbe and Goyle, was almost sanguine. "Glad you finally noticed – no they don't."

Harry cut him an apprehensive sideways look.

Nott looked toward Crabbe and Goyle, eyes narrowing in speculative appreciation. "I'm sure I'm right, because _no-one_ could be as thick as those two …"

Harry noticed that there was now a funny smell in the loo: quite mild and faint, but a bit like old socks mixing with the toilet-smell around them.

Kreacher's eyes narrowed.

There was a shuffling sound and Harry looked over his shoulder to see Neville stepping even further back.

Harry turned to Crabbe and Goyle again and, for a moment, didn't quite know what he was looking at. He saw something he wasn't quite able to process at first – as even for the world of magic it was odd. A great broadening and extending and expanding; big arms and shoulders being gruntingly stretched and worked about as though they had been cramped in too-small a space for too long; colour fading from pink skin tones to an odd greyish-green.

The already gigantic Crabbe and Goyle had become truly enourmous: bodies huge and heads contrastingly tiny; already long arms grown longer and already short legs grown shorter; eyes minute, like little currents, and noses now positively snouty.

Their fluffy bed-socks now strained over flat, horny-looking feet.

Nott looked up at them considering, "Well, I always suspected they weren't quite like the rest of us, but that is odd."

"O_dd!?"_ Harry jerked his horrified gaze away from 'Crabbe' and 'Goyle' to glare at Nott, "they're two ruddy-great _TROLLS!"_

Crabbe – or was it Goyle? – looked down upon the now contrastingly short, squeaky Harry and mumbled a bit. With their Wee-Willy-Winkie caps and their nighties now coming up over the knees of their short legs, they looked like two enormous, grey-skinned babies in romper suits and bonnets.

They mewed in a sort of pathetic contrition, like two dogs caught doing something naughty.

"Trolls." Nott sounded almost wistful, "For some reason, I always had my money on baby-giants. Can't think why."

Harry could barely squeeze words out and was reduced to pointing mutely, as though in a mime show entitled Two Things I Wish I Hadn't Seen. He found his voice again, "_CAVE TROLLS!"_

"Well, let's be accurate," corrected Nott, "_security_ trolls. Why do you think they never left Malfoy alone? Why do you think he never went anywhere without them? They were guards. I knew there was something up – not that he actually admitted to it."

"Do you mean Malfoy _knew?"_

"Well he could hardly _not_ know, could he? I'm sure he got to be a dab-hand with a _Confundus_ though: whenever he wanted them to be a bit calmer he'd _mutter_ at them -"

At that, Kreacher was almost crooning, _"Oh, Master Draco – tamer of wild things, he who is skilled in spell-craft, he who was born to the ways of servants …"_

"Anyway," continued Nott, coughing, "I'm sure that was it. I thought once that he was going to let me in on it properly: when in fifth-year we formed the H.A." – Harry looked askance – "Hex Association," explained Nott, "just the two of us practicing hexes in the trophy room together."

Harry didn't know what to be more amazed at, "You had your own secret society? And trolls. And you had your own secret society? And trolls?"

He was struck by the spiky, sharp thought that Ron would have been sick with laughter if he'd heard all this.

"Well, the society thing was hardly against the rules, Potter. As Malfoy pointed out, the decree forbade any unregistered meeting of _three or more_ pupils: two isn't 'three or more', is it?"

Nott had evidently chosen to side-step the potential legality of 'trolls'.

Kreacher was shivering in delight at, "_Master Draco's cleverness."_

Harry forgot the H.A. thing and gawped up at 'Crabbe' and 'Goyle'. Trolls? At Hogwarts? All those years? Crabbe and Goyle? They weren't even _HUMAN?_

Thinking of how wildly hilarious Ron would have found it, he wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

He was left mouthing the word 'trolls', whilst Neville was just left mouthing.

Trolls.

"Yep, _security _trolls," finished Nott. "After all, not even Malfoy's father is going to lump two untrained trolls on a school."

"His _dad_?" screamed Harry.

"Well Malfoy didn't hire them himself, did he? I bet his father was the reason why Malfoy kept it all quiet: probably his father had told him not to tell anyone."

"But why?" yelped Harry. "_Why_ the trolls?"

"I wondered that myself. I thought it was just some affectation, he probably just saw them as a 'present' from his father. But from what you said earlier, with Malfoy being some sort of prize or offering for the Dar – for Vold – for whatisface, I expect Malfoy's father was keen to keep his investment safe."

Kreacher turned and screeched at that and Harry realised that Kreacher had not been kept informed of Malfoy's intended fate. "Master Draco is made victim by Lucius Malfoy?" screeched Kreacher. "Master Draco, scion of the line of Black, used as a chattel by that parvenu undeserver, _Malfoy?_ Offered up to the half-blood, _Riddle?"_

It was hard to know what Kreacher was more furious at: Malfoy's fate or the fact that he was offered to a half-blood.

Kreacher patently had no truck with any nonsense about Dark Lords or Voldemorts. Tom Riddle was a half-blood, Kreacher had almost certainly always been able to smell it, Voldemort was 'Riddle'.

Nott pointed his wand and enlarged 'Crabbe' and 'Goyle's' beaters bats to something appropriate to their humongous size. He pointed at the sink which led to the capped-off passage, "Get cracking."

Chunks of stone flew left and right as the sink was smashed off its pedestal, then – with Kreacher's frantically screeched encouragement – 'Crabbe' and 'Goyle' really got stuck in. Huge reverberating thwangs echoed about the bathroom, their booming, vibrating tones getting into Harry's ears and actually hurting: the sharp ring of stone on stone.

It was like being trapped in a belfry with the bells going full-clang, or being stuck on a building site with a jack-hammer battering.

They were beating chunks out of the floor by the sink, exposing the pipe-work of the filled-in passage and relentlessly smashing away at the plug of concrete.

Kreacher, panting from his wounds, squealed with pain at the resonating sound, but still encouraged them to beat harder.

Harry, Neville and Nott lurched from side to side, clutching onto the toilet cubicals as the floor shuddered under the beatings from Crabbe and Goyle.

Hands half over his ears, Harry had to shout to be heard. _"WHY?"_

"_WHAT?"_

"_WHY ARE YOU HELPING ME?"_

Neville, lip-reading Harry's shouts, looked apprehensively between Harry and Nott.

Nott flicked Harry a guarded, slightly bitter look.

The conversation took place at shouting-volume.

"Well I'm not doing it for you, if that's what you think – you great, gormless, Gryffindor git! You've always hated us. You and those Weasleys, always having a go at the Slyths: jeering us at the Sorting, playing stupid, dangerous practical jokes that were just bullying in disguise! Everyone says how much they liked the Weasley twins _now _– sure, now they're _gone_ and aren't making peoples' lives a misery any more! I'm doing all this for Malfoy, because he was the only one in our House – the only one in the whole school – who didn't just stand around talking about what a git you were, he went out there and stuck it to you as many times as he could even though you were Dumbledore's little favourite!"

"_Me?"_ Harry was outraged. "I – he tried to kill the Professor!"

"Yeah, sure, which is why you're so keen to get down there and save him. Unless it's just you setting yourself up as the hero – again!"

Harry looked exasperated.

"Oh take that look off your face!" snapped Nott. "Death Eaters do talk you know! There is gossip. People do overhear it. What I heard after last year was that Volder – thingie, was making him do it! And in the end, he _still_ didn't do it! Snape did it!"

No: Snape hadn't done it, Dumbledore had.

Harry stopped: it had brought home the whole horrid story again and reminded him why he was here.

"He used to help me!" yelled Nott. "Malfoy used to help me! Well, help me as much as he helped anyone. But he knew how to keep a secret. Despite all the arm-waving and jokes and showing off, he could be discreet – which is something I bet you can't even spell properly! He knew I'd 'seen death', he knew it was a death I shouldn't have seen," Nott hauled in a breath, eyes closed, raging, "_I saw my mum murdered by the Death Eaters!_" He glared at Harry, "He knew something that time when we saw the Thestrals in C.O.M.C. But he knew the Death Eaters didn't know I knew. He knew if they found out then things would go badly for me. He kept my secret: when I put my hand up that time for seeing Thestrals without knowing what that meant, _he covered for me and blabbed all over the lesson until me holding my hand up had been forgotten!"_

Harry silenced: he remembered that, he just hadn't remembered it in that way.

'His dad was a Death Eater – we all knew it – same as mine, only his wasn't in jail, that's all. But I knew his life was no better than mine, not really. I knew something awful had happened to him. He had terrible half-memories, terrible dreams but he didn't know what about. He used to wake up screaming some nights. Zabini used to laugh at him and call him a girl, so he stopped screaming. But it didn't stop the dreams though, I could tell that: _he just made himself stop screaming awake!'_

_Terrible half-memories … Malfoy had stolen Neville's Remembrall … but it hadn't worked._

Staring blankly as Nott raged to a spluttering halt, Harry realised that he had never really known Draco Malfoy, he had only known how Draco Malfoy had behaved toward him, which was not the same thing.

Harry realised that the silence was not just due to the fact that Nott had stopped shouting: Crabbe and Goyle – it was impossible to think of them as anything else even though they were trolls - had stopped beating out huge chunks of the floor and now there was just a gaping crater where the sink had been.

A faint, cool draught filtered up from it: the passage was open.

Crabbe and Goyle cooed down it in puzzlement.

Kreacher scampered to it eagerly, the long wound in his side still oozing

From over by the window, Neville called in a quiet voice, "The boat's leaving."

Harry, Neville and Nott hung out the window and saw the Durmstrang ship gliding serenely to the centre of the mere, a dark ship-shaped imprint against the diamond-black glitter of the moonlit lake.

The ship seemed to stop for a moment, completely still, as though waiting: they could still get on board if they shouted, the ship would hold for them.

"Bugger it," said Neville, "let's go."

For a split-second, Harry thought that Neville meant 'let's leave', having decided to call it quits. But Neville turned on his heel and walked to the open passage, "Let's see what we can do in that Chamber." He looked across at Nott, "You coming?"

"Of course I'm coming, they killed my mum. They killed her and I never -" his voice broke for a moment and then he steeled, "of course I'm going to do it."

A minute later, Harry was inside the broken-open pipe, legs and feet splayed against the side for traction to arrest any slide. He was looking up, catching the injured Kreacher in his outstretched arms, ready to then turn and slide down with him. Neville and Nott were above him, ready to follow – Crabbe and Goyle would come, assuming they could fit.

Then the floor began to shift again and small bits of chipped concrete and stone began rolling from the craggy lip of the broken-open passageway. Bouncing and tumbling, bits fell into the tunnel: the precursor to a landslide.

The floor rumbled as Kreacher squeaked and fell into Harry's arms.

Was it the weight of Crabbe and Goyle fracturing the edge of the hole?

Or … was it the castle shifting under the first Heliopath strikes as the wards had finally come down?

The floor above him tilted. Neville, Nott, Crabbe and Goyle all lurched sideways and the rubble sides of the hole shifted, the fabric loosening with blocks tumbling hard toward Harry's up tilted face.

He tucked his legs in and grimly shot down the pipe, holding the squealing Kreacher, whooshing along, attempting to outrace the falling rocks. Above them was the rumble of moving concrete, rocks and dirt as the make-shift opening to the passageway collapsed in on itself.

He was trying to stay ahead of it, but he kept catching on the sides and having to slow for bends and the deadly avalanche of suffocating rubble was catching him; the air about him was thick with dust now.

They shot past side-pipe after side-pipe. Harry realised that Scrimgeour was right, the earth beneath Hogwarts was honeycombed: the castle would bring down the Chamber.

In the narrow chute and with Kreacher clinging to him, there wasn't even room to reach for his wand and get a spell off to try and slow the plummeting debris.

He dared risk a panicked look up and saw a great rock sailing down toward him –

- and lurched sideways, twisting wildly, swinging himself and Kreacher into one of the slightly smaller side-branches of the pipe system as the falling rock shot past.

They were now in a tunnel Harry did not know, careening wildly, twisting and spiraling down the slimy chute which was lit only by the dull glow of algae; plunging for miles below the dungeons, below the underground lake.

Kreacher squealed in a sudden panic, and Harry saw it: the chute below was sealed solid with a plug of stone. The teachers hadn't just sealed the bathroom end of the tunnel system, they had sealed every single underground exit and entrance!

With a huge effort that left him winded, Kreacher pointed his finger and blasted the plug out of the way and, as the pipe leveled out at the bottom, they hurtled from it, their momentum seeing them arc through the air slightly before landing with a breath-expelling thump on their backs in the mud of the tunnel floor amid the debris of the blast.

All about them was a plume of white dust, funneling from the blasted pipe, hovering in the air before settling upon the dirt.

A few small pebbles danced out the end of the tube before rattling and rolling to a halt in the mud: the last signs of the land-slip which had sealed the pipe above.

Harry stared up the tunnel roof; miles above it were Neville and the others, he hoped they had left by Apparition and were safe.

Lost in an unknown section of the tunnel system, Harry and Kreacher, battered, bloody and covered in dust, were quite alone.

xxxxx

"Oh, of course, poor, benighted, down-trodden Kreacher forgets: _Potter can do everything._ Single-handedly slaughter a Basilisk; escape the blood-polluted Riddle at will and without _anyone's_ help; win the Triwizard Tournament because he is so powerful, not because it is _arranged_ that he win – _get lost in_ _tunnels because he does not pay heed to where he is going!"_

Harry clamped his mouth shut in exasperation. He'd saved their lives with that tunnel switch – it wasn't his fault they didn't know where they were now! Though Kreacher looked awful, with the white dust from the blast now patchily coating the pink of his bite-wounds and the ooze of his injury, Harry found it terribly hard to sympathise.

He could never forget that Kreacher had been germane to Sirius' death.

By the light of Lumos they stumbled along a passageway, with the darkness about them so thick that it was like black fog. Having come out at a random exit, Harry did not know the way to the Chamber, but had assumed that as all tunnels led to it, he only had to keep following the slope downward and they would reach it. Dropping pebbles and watching which way they rolled, Harry had set off, with Kreacher having no choice but to follow.

"And oh – but poor Master Draco. To be sacrificed for the filth, Riddle! And oh, my slighted Mistress Bellatrix: what will she do when she uncovers such a wicked calumny? And Mistress Narcissa, how furious she will be at the betrayal of her son! Ah, the betrayal of Master Draco, a scion of the Blacks, encapsulating all the great beauty and bearing and nobility …_"_

Harry tried not to roll his eyes as he yanked Kreacher along behind him.

"Betrayed – betrayed by those parvenus of no real blood, the _Malfoys!"_

Kreacher was coming to utter the word 'Malfoy' as though it were an even greater insult than the word, 'Potter'.

It was clear that Harry and Kreacher were not suited to be melded as Master and Servant: Harry was uncomfortable with the role and, partly as a consequence, Kreacher did not respect Harry – not that Kreacher had ever liked him anyway.

"At least I killed the Basilisk that was down here before. It can hardly come back from the dead, can it? Unless you're going to cheer us up with tales of _zombie _Basilisks!"

"A Basilisk would not be so very hard to generate – a mere chicken's egg hatched beneath a toad," Kreacher sniffed, point-scoring. "Toads are plentiful and so are chickens, there could have easily been another one born."

"What? A toad accidentally rolled on top of a chicken-egg and then decided to sit there for a few months? Don't talk rubbish!"

Kreacher's blood-shot eyes narrowed in disgust, "Is Potter aware that the Headmistress of Hogwarts herself has been _using_ Basilisks?"

"Don't believe you!"

Kreacher bristled.

"In ancient times a gorgon – the Basilisk - protected Minerva, the goddess of knowledge. Even now, the scales of the great serpent can be wrought into a defense for a woman. With the permission of Dumbledore, McGonagall was able to wring a single magical garment from the scales of the very creature you slaughtered. A special vest to withstand the onslaught of hexes and spells! Dumbledore insisted she have it. He wanted her to have protection, so that if he died the school would still have a suitable leader!"

"What?" Harry turned about, because that would explain how she could survive five point-blanc Stunning spells. Minerva shielded by the gorgon, a clever woman protected by a snake? "How do you know about some vest? I've only got your word for it!"

Kreacher simpered.

"Kreacher is resourceful, Kreacher uses his wiles, Kreacher -"

"Oh I get it - Kreacher grubs about in people's underwear drawers!"

Kreacher looked away in sly defiance.

_Rooting about in underwear drawers …_

Harry got a very odd feeling …

_Oh no. Oh, come on – oh, surely not!_

"You have – you have _got _to be joking!"

But Kreacher's gaze now shifted into an expression of smug self-approval as he realised that Harry had finally guessed. "You have _got _to be -! _You've been spying on me for Draco Malfoy?"_

Kreacher simpered in acknowledgement, smirking in winsome self-congratulation, he bowed low as though taking applause, "Well, Master _ordered_ Kreacher to do so!"

"I – wha? - _how?"_

Kreacher's eyes were abrim with devout joy as he uttered the immortal words: _"Master told Kreacher to 'get out of it'."_

He breathed the phrase as though it had been carved in stone from on high.

"_Get out of it," _he intoned reverentially. "Oh, how wise Master can be! Oh, how sage! Oh, how subtle his orders!"

"Subtle?Try _'non-existent'!"_

"Master had ordered Kreacher to follow Master Draco, yet had forbidden Kreacher to 'tip him off … or to show him what you're up to, or to talk to him at all, or to write him messages, or to contact him in any way.' But Master sensed that Kreacher was unhappy in such a deceitful role – upright, honest, true, _honourable_ Kreacher – and so later told Kreacher to 'get out of it'. Ahhh, the acumen and judgement of Master, the insight and the awareness! To have perceived that -"

"I didn't perceive anything. I was telling you to get lost and stop insulting Hermione!"

"– to have perceived Kreacher's unhappiness and released him from his strictures! For what else could 'get out of it' have meant -"

"It meant shove off and stop pestering people!"

"– what could it have meant other than to instruct Kreacher to free himself from Master's previous order? And as that was the case, as that was Master's desire, it must have meant that Master _wanted_ Kreacher to contact Master Draco!"

The dust-covered Kreacher viewed Harry with a nasty, clever, sly victoriousness as Harry heaved in breath, livid.

"You were searching for the locket in Grimmauld Place, so you could give it to him, weren't you?" he snapped.

"Yes!" hooted Kreacher, clapping.

Harry was sliding into a real temper.

He was beginning to get that familiar rushing noise in his ears, the one he got when he was angry.

"In fact, he was there when we first arrived, wasn't he? That was his cloak on the cloak-stand. And that was how he twigged to the bank-vault, you were listening at the door when Nigellus told us about it!"

"Master Nigellus is a Black," simpered Kreacher, piously, "he would have _wanted_ me to inform Master Draco."

"And that was how he got out of that sodding bank vault despite all the wards! You were 'Plan B' – you took him out, which is why you were out of breath when we got back! And you wanted to take my bag because you wanted the cup! You – you even took that note to Slughorn! The one where Malfoy told him to clear off out of the school! You were even the one who smuggled his Polyjuice to him at the Reception – running in around the security arch because elves weren't being checked!"

Harry suddenly got it_ - just the same way Hermione had used Dobby!_

"Oh, Master is _so_ clever to realise all of this _now_ …" Kreacher was barely able to suppress his glee when adding with a sly note, "Of course, Master Draco would have detected it_ before_ …"

Harry snapped, the rushing in his ears sounding like a positive hiss now.

"You deceitful, fraudulent, lying, untrustworthy -!"

Kreacher bridled and snapped back.

"Kreacher is none of those things!"

"You dishonest, deceiving, false-hearted -_"_

"I am a true elf! I am true to my House. I am true to Master Draco." Kreacher's voice rose, provoked beyond elf-propriety. "It is Potter who is dishonest, deceiving and false-hearted." Kreacher's pitch took off. "He is a pickpocket! A purloiner! He has stolen the rightful property of the House of Black!"

He sounded as though he were standing in the street crying _'Stop, thief!'_.

"Sirius left it to me in his will! How could that be 'stealing'?"

"_Sirius Black had no right!_ He had no right to entail outside the House of Black!"

"Don't you dare talk about -!"

But something in Kreacher had been unleashed, some pent-up rage at a perceived injustice.

"Sirius Black steals the heritage of the Blacks to bestow upon Potter! Sirius Black thinks nothing of his family history and merely wants to persuade his friends of his great generosity! Sirius Black simply wants to impress all with his graciousness by leaving everything to the poor, lonely orphan! And Potter is complicit! Potter accepts it, knowing it is not his because it was not Sirius Black's to give!_ Potter is a filthy, grasping usurper of all that is rightfully Master Draco's!"_

"I never even wanted it! I only took it to stop you from running to Bellatrix Black!"

Kreacher's voice hit a new pitch of outrage.

The noise in Harry's ears was like the great rush of the sea now.

"_Potter dares to blame Kreacher?_ Potter says it is Kreacher's fault that the property of the Blacks was lost to them? _Potter is a thieving liar!_"

"Sirius left you to me, so I had to -"

But there was something almost howling in Kreacher's tone now.

"Sirius Black entailed Kreacher without of the House! Sirius Black revoked Kreacher from the House of Black! Sirius Black gave Kreacher away. Sirius Black banished Kreacher from the House of Black without any thought! Kreacher was an elf of the House. Kreacher's parents and all his line were elves of the House! All Kreacher ever wanted to do, was to serve those of the House of Black, to do his duty to his line, to uphold the honour of his House! Kreacher was _proud_ of that! Kreacher _wished_ to serve! And then Kreacher is exiled, cast out through no fault of his own, expelled, condemned to care for the filthy, uncaring, disrespectful _Potter-brat!_ To take demeaning orders and insults from the Potter-brat without any recourse!"

Harry was astonished.

Kreacher's tiny fists balled, his face was screwed up.

"_It was the_ _only time Kreacher knew what it was to be a slave!"_

Furious-faced, he ran at Harry but then grasped Harry's wrist and swirled Harry about with a great cry of -

"_NO!" _

Harry half-turned, arm raising defensively before his face, fearing that Kreacher was attacking him, but as he turned he saw something else: rearing above them, hissing, its dry scales making a rushing noise against the walls of the tunnel, was a Basilisk.

That rushing noise in his ears hadn't been his temper at all.

It was not as big as the one Harry had once dispatched, but even a small one was big enough.

Kreacher shrieked and clapped his small, bony, leathery, long-fingered hand over Harry's eyes and pointed his other hand at the snake: _"BACK!"_

Harry tried to wrench Kreacher's hand from him: he couldn't fight if he couldn't see!

"_No!"_ yelped Kreacher, and Harry was hurled back, magically rendered sightless.

The Basilisk could stare at him all it liked now, it's gaze could not hurt him, he couldn't see it even with his eyes wide open.

It could still bite him though, and all Harry could hear now was the terrible screeching and hissing of a tiny, ancient, crabbed elf struggling against a thirty-foot, poison-fanged, deadly-eyed, immense serpent.

It should have been no contest, an elf versus a serpent? – a mere bagatelle! But Kreacher was already injured from the fight for the school …

Even so, he nearly made it.

But 'nearly' isn't good enough when it's a fight to the death.

Because 'nearly winning' means you die.

The noise filled the tunnel: terrible gaspings and rattlings.

From the sounds, it was hard to say whether or not the snake was fighting from sheer panic at having been attacked.

Harry's vision began to clear.

He was faced with the blurred, black, white and greyish sight of a terrible, squirming, coiling, flailing struggle, with Kreacher up in the air, enmeshed in the loops of the great squeezing snake, with the serpent thrashing about.

Kreacher and the serpent were both bleeding from the fight: Kreacher fired on by his ingrained rage born of the heated, pervasive, all-encompassing sense of the injustices done to him, and the snake squirming in panic as it fought to escape the injuries inflicted by the very thing it held.

Harry's vision snapped back into colour and he lurched forward, eyes shielded from the direction of the Basilisk's eyes, aiming to throw a _Stupefy_ or an _Impedimentia_ or, if he could make himself do it, the very worst spell he knew: _Sectumsempra._

"NO!" screeched Kreacher, but with Kreacher's struggles diverted for just a second, the snake bit him.

Harry screeched to a horrified halt.

For a second there was nothing but a charged stillness and then –

Kreacher arched with a dreadful, sharp, high cry, and Harry remembered the terrible pain of being bitten: a white-hot burning spreading all through.

Kreacher squirmed, squealed – the pain too great to allow any greater noise - and fell to the floor, writhing, dropped suddenly by the Basilisk which reared up and then – sped off, slithering away.

Harry ran forward and slid to a halt on his knees, trying to cradle the pain-wracked Kreacher.

Kreacher was squirming and writhing but there was nothing Harry could _do!_ He desperately tried to remember back to his own experience: hadn't there come a point when the pain faded and vision darkened to blackness? Wasn't there even that consolation, that the pain would swiftly fade, leaving Kreacher just numb and dying? Or was Harry believing that because he wanted to? Was he confusing the relief Fawkes had bought him with the sensation of death?

Was he believing the pain would fade, because he was the one who had just gotten Kreacher bitten?

"But there shouldn't be a Basilisk!" his tone was wild, trying to find vindication, "I killed it!"

Kreacher's voice was high and gasping, squeaky and full of pain.

"It is but a short step, Harry Potter, from using a Basilisk's scales for protection, to create a Basilisk to protect a school."

If Kreacher in any way held Harry responsible for what had just happened, he wasn't saying it.

Harry wanted to scream for help, but Fawkes had left Hogwarts an age ago, and the only people who would come now would be the Death Eaters who were easily in the Chamber by now.

"Did Harry Potter never consider that the teachers could have created a new Basilisk, leaving it here to patrol the lowest passages, as they held the school safely sealed from it?"

Harry wanted to shriek. "They had no right! They had -"

"They had every right!" reprimanded Kreacher, as though Harry was a child in his care who had said something very naughty. _"They are wizards!"_

Harry felt Ron's vexed statement beating at his brain: _Bet they cemented the whole thing shut and just left it at that. Never mind what's really going on: just so long as it all looks nice and tidy._

The elf was panting horribly.

"Kreacher - Kreacher _had _to help Master Draco."

"He _made_ you do it?"

"NO!" Kreacher's voice was a twisted gasp, "Potter-brat must _listen!_ Kreacher must un-burden himself before it is too late. Kreacher sinned against the House of Black -"

"It doesn't matter, Kreacher, it doesn't – about Sirius, it's all done now, it's -"

"_Not that!"_

Harry blinked back his sweat. Not that? Something else?

"Kreacher must un-burden to Master or Kreacher will pass on, tainted by his sins against his House!" Kreacher clutched at Harry's sleeve, struggling to half-rise, eyes full of desperate terror, _"Kreacher must not die unshriven!"_

Harry didn't even know what 'unshriven' meant.

"Kreacher – Kreacher," Kreacher could barely get beyond his own name, some spiritual terror torturing him far greater than the now dully spreading Basilisk venom, "Kreacher hurt – Kreacher did a terrible thing." Screwing himself to it, he forced the words out almost in a shriek: _"Kreacher killed Master Regulus!"_

Harry almost blurted '_I don't believe you!'_, but that wasn't the thing to say, not right now.

Kreacher obviously believed he had committed some desperate, terrible harm, and needed to be forgiven, or at least confess.

But surely it couldn't be something serious? Kreacher doted on the House of Black!

"Kreacher accompanied Master Regulus to a cave -"

Harry's head jerked up.

"- to get a locket …" Kreacher broke into heart-broken weeping, "_Kreacher barged Master aside and tried to drink the potion himself. Kreacher drank and drank - but the potion just kept re-filling into the bowl!_"

In his confusion at approaching death, Kreacher was missing out huge chunks of his story, but Harry didn't need to hear it; he knew all the details, he'd been there himself.

"So Kreacher had to keep dosing – keep dosing Master," Kreacher was crying so hard now, that his words were virtually indecipherable, but Harry could follow the tale easily: it was his own. "Even though Kreacher knew it was killing Master, Kreacher could not stop. Kreacher had foresworn. Kreacher had promised. Master had _made_ Kreacher promise!"

Kreacher wriggled in pain, and Harry held on, horrified.

"His body! Not even brought back to the House for the proper funary rites! Master _made_ Kreacher promise to leave his body. Made Kreacher promise to bury him unmarked in the common dirt. Made Kreacher promise to keep the secret of the cave and the locket. Made Kreacher promise to keep the locket safe …"

That was when Kreacher had started to go mad: at that cave, on that night, the night when he had been forced to kill a beloved of the House of Black.

Sirius had been wrong, it hadn't been loneliness that had sent Kreacher mad, it had been guilt. Hence why he'd tried desperately to save the locket that time at the great Grimmauld Place clean-up: he didn't know what it was, but it meant so much to him in a twisted way, Regulus had been determined to die for it.

"And Sirius Black – always _berating_ Master Regulus!"

And so Kreacher had hated Sirius.

"You are forgiven, Kreacher." What was that word? "Shriven. You are shriven." Harry hoped he was getting the words right. He hoped it was making sense. He hoped this was what he was supposed to say. "You are forgiven."

"But only the House of Black -"

Harry knew what Kreacher was going to say.

"The House of Black is Draco Malfoy. And Malfoy would understand. I know he would. He knows that sometimes you have to do terrible things for a good reason. He would know that you had to do it."

"Draco. Master Draco, he was of the House and beloved, I wanted to help him - I had to _save _him – my atonement to the House …" with a last burst of effort, Kreacher lurched up, eyes wild, "Potter must promise to save Master Draco! _Promise!"_

"I will."

At a time like that, there was nothing else to be said.

Kreacher fell back, soothed, "_Master has given his word …"_

Harry struggled for the right thing to say.

"Regulus died a hero, Kreacher, and everyone will know it. He will not go unremembered. He was a hero."

"Was he?" Kreacher sounded tremulous, his eyes flickering open like a child at bed-time being told the conclusion of fairy tale, _"Was he …?"_

Harry nodded – because it was true anyway; he fought for the words and finally found them.

"When the Black-family die in battle – they die heroes."

And with his happy-ending, unafraid now to go safely to sleep, Kreacher of the House of Black slipped his life without even the quietest of murmurs.

After a few minutes, Harry stood up.

He brushed down.

He steadied.

He would have to get into that Chamber now: he'd promised.

xxxxx

Walking downward on auto-pilot, the passages widened until he was in a great central culvert: Harry was sure it was the one which led directly to the Chamber. He wondered vaguely if the Death Eaters had trod this same path and had been forced to clear the blockage made by Lockhart that time, or if they had come by some other route.

He did not even feel particularly frightened: there had been lot of death tonight and fear seemed to have been burned out of him.

He could hear the muffle of voices from within the Chamber. So, they were here then?

The main entrance to the Chamber was as he remembered it: a solid wall on which was carved two entwined serpents with emeralds for eyes. To get the door open, Harry had spoken the word 'Open' in Parseltongue and the serpents had parted and the wall had cracked open, the halves sliding out of sight.

He could not do that now though.

Announce his entrance like that, give away any element of surprise? If he did that, then never mind attempting to save anyone and vanquish Voldemort, he'd be dead before he could do a thing.

Tired, he simply leant his hand against the side of the passage and spoke quietly to the wall, aiming to speak English but his words coming out in Parseltongue anyway, but too quiet to shift aside the main gates.

"Just let me in, okay? I'm tired, just let me in. You're the castle, help me."

Harry was not even surprised when the wall shimmered and dissolved to open to a narrow fissure, he was sort of expecting it.

There was something inevitable about having to meet Voldemort.

He passed into the crack in the rock, moving quietly ahead, twisting and turning, as the entrance silently sealed behind him.

It was very long and lit only by the continuous, silvery, shimmering glimmer of some glow-worm like things living in little colonies on the walls.

Wherever it was going, the passage narrowed and reduced in height and Harry had to crawl on all fours to continue. He rounded a bend and before him was a circular opening about two-foot in diameter through which he could see the eerie greenish illumination of the Chamber itself.

He could hear the voices much more clearly now.

Heart thumping, wand clenched in his fist, he crawled with painful slowness to the circular opening and took the briefest of glimpses before drawing back.

A vertiginous, swooping collage of collected images before he ducked back, frightened of being seen. Columns carved in the shape of serpents supporting the ceiling. The greenish gloom. The immensity of the almost cathedral-like space. The huge stone flags of the floor making the hundred or so Death Eaters standing on them seem even smaller.

He could not see the huge statue of the monkey-faced wizard with the long, thin beard at the far end though, and knew why: his view was from that very statue.

He had a view from one of the holes that formed the eyes of the statue of Slytherin.

Far below him, Ginny Weasley was held to one side, red hair instantly visible, gripped between two Death Eaters, crying; Hermione struggled in the grasp of another Death Eater; and right below him, directly between the feet of the statue, tied to a stake on a raised platform which Voldemort had drawn forth, was a struggling Draco Malfoy.

Something had gone horribly wrong in Malfoy's plans, but his plans had always been flawed anyway: he did not know that Voldemort and his father had always meant to sacrifice him.

Voldemort's high clear voice floated up.

"Deviousness is admirable, Draco. That, and ruthlessness, are the very qualities which build empires, and you have them in abundance. What a fitting heir you would have made."

Draco Malfoy was twisting and yelling.

"_Dad?_ _DAD!_ _Do something!"_

But his father, tall, self-serving and disdainful, did nothing.

"You see, Draco," continued Voldemort, "I knew you were lying to me, _deceiving me_. Yes, you had natural Occlumens skills – superb ones – but you were inexperienced and you made the mistake of lying directly to me: lying to my face about the ownership of that infernal _list_. Never a very clever idea, Draco – not that I think you will have much time in which to learn from your error."

Voldemort's voice paused as though for theatrical effect.

"I did not know you held secrets from me until that point, Draco, but after that of course, I did. Just think, you betrayed yourself not by lying for gain or advancement or for any great personal affluence, instead, of all things, you were betrayed by choosing to lie to protect a filthy little Mudblood."

At that, Hermione's muffled protests could be heard and she struggled even harder, but it was hopeless.

Draco Malfoy was on trial.

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: once again, another long chapter. Once again, I did consider cutting it down and publishing it in sections - but you'll notice that each subsquent section (apart from the very last with Draco) opens with a punch-line taking straight off from the end of the previous section. Theo's 'nobility-boy' sneer was really needed right where it was to undercut the potential cheesiness of 'I can die trying' - which would have been unbearably corny and smug if left to end a chapter without the immediate comeback and undercut. As to the Kreacher section - I could have split it off but I just love the way that Kreacher rags on Harry mercilessly, and I felt that the impetus of the story needed to see us down in that Chamber at the end of this chapter._


	38. Chapter 38

Title: (Chapter 38)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 

**Chapter 38**

Hidden in the giant statue in the Chamber, Harry used his half of the two-way mirror to see: holding it at an angle just over the edge of the statue's eye-hole.

Seen through a looking-glass, it was a jumpy image rendered upside-down and back-to-front and seen from a collection of crazy, skewed angles: Harry supposed that's what you got when looking through Salazar Slytherin's eyes.

Below him, Malfoy was tied to a stake on a stone dais, wrists and roped securely behind him to a metal ring set in the wooden post.

Hermione and Ginny stood away, gripped by Death Eaters.

Harry was almost shocked at Hermione's expression: she was glaring, hot-eyed at Voldemort, seething with an unvoiced wrath. Harry remembered: she had seen Ron die that night.

Did she still have her wand? He remembered Malfoy making crude jokes to her about 'slipping her some wood' when no-one was looking. Had he meant 'give her wand back'?

Ginny twisted feebly in the grip of her captor, weeping uncontrollably. She looked like a rag-doll held upright. Her brother was dead and so was her mother, and she had seen her mother murdered in front of her. Horribly, she was still wearing the bent and tarnished tiara. It seemed to have clamped itself to her head: even from this distance it looked like it's wiry base was somehow pinching and digging into her scalp. With its spiky, blackened, twisted diadem rising out of her hair – the spiky projections looked like they had once been pretty flower-stalks but under some warping pressure, now had the appearance of something far more harsh – it looked like thick, black thorns were growing out of her head.

Harry knew it was a defunct Horcrux – so what was the betting it was a Founder object? Ravenclaw's tiara? Had to be. It had killed Luna Lovegood's mother when Mrs. Lovegood had unknowingly destroyed the Horcrux within it, and then Luna had died for Harry …

One way or another, Voldemort had done for both the Lovegood women. For the first time Harry wondered how Mr. Lovegood would feel when he found out about Luna. He'd lost his wife, and tonight he'd lost his only child, his whole family swept away from him …

Harry sharpened himself to the point: was the tiara still powerful in itself? Just because the Horcrux was gone, why wouldn't the force of its Founder remain? Could it still be useful?

It looked utterly inconspicuous, just like Ginny herself – but was there still great, un-tapped power there that could yet be unleashed?

Ginny struggled, painfully wriggling under the grip of the tiara biting into her scalp. For a second, the Death Eater holding her hissed and shot her a look – as though she'd suddenly become uncomfortable to grip: too hot to hold. Then he slapped her and, after stiffening with a gasp when Harry thought she might actually fight back, she collapsed to sobbing limply.

The Death Eater gripped her again, determinedly now, like someone who grimly held onto a scalding cup of coffee, brutally waiting it out for the temperature to drop.

Harry looked about. Further down the Chamber was a great raised stone like an altar, with the cup, the locket, and also the defunct Horcruxes of the diary and the tiara upon it. All lit by magic-light, it looked like a particularly gaudy shop window.

Beyond that, on another raised plinth, was the gold and silver sealed box and also, strangely, the ugly, clumsily-carved gold ring with the cracked central stone: the ex-Horcrux ring, the ring of the Peverell's - the ring of Godric Gryffindor? The box and the ring, together in the Chamber, seemed to glow discreetly in the greenish gloom, seemingly emanating a soft light of their own.

Harry would have been worried at why they had been separated out and placed together, he would have been worried at what they were for, if he hadn't already had a lot of other things to worry about.

There were about a hundred gowned Death Eaters down there, their masks askew or lost during the lake battle or during their long walk down through the earth. Many he did not know, but Harry could see the usual suspects and also a few others he recognised: the slavering Greyback who was leering at Malfoy; Cuffe, Dawlish, Ludo Bagman – _hell, was that Fred's girlfriend, that Tanit bird?_

With a plunging feeling he knew he was right. And that was how Ginny and poor Mrs. Weasley had been caught – Tanit whatserface had been hovering like some carrion-bird all the time. Some sharp-eyed, spearing-beaked, black crow, waiting for the chance to swoop in on weakened prey.

Harry saw a slimy-looking, smug-faced git next to her who looked like he might be related.

Greyback had a few other werewolves with him, and Harry suspected there was no love lost between Voldemort and Greyback. The werewolf was a psycho, but not stupid. He must have known what Voldemort thought of the 'impure' – Greyback was there to protect his own interests.

There was no sign that any of them had met the Basilisk, or even knew of it. The Ministry reports on the Chamber had all said that the Basilisk had been killed, they wouldn't think there was another one.

Nagini was slithering about, the dry rustle of her snake-skin against the stone floor, the gleam of her scales in the greenish light.

The fact that Harry could hear her was a testament to how quiet it was in the Chamber: the school above might right now be being torn apart, but so far not a tremor had been felt down here.

Voldemort had no reason to suspect he need hurry. As far as he was aware, no-one knew that the Death Eater aim had been the Chamber. No-one knew that the Puffs were a mere distraction. Was he even aware that Harry was alive? Had Draco Malfoy been able to keep that part hidden?

Harry could not avoid noticing that Nagini's tongue was flickering in and out: tasting the air. Could she tell he was there? He hoped not - not when he was this far up and with everyone else's scent about him.

There was a strange, sweet smell though, very faint. It seemed to be coming directly up from where Malfoy struggled against his bonds: Harry wondered if it was the smell of panic.

Malfoy had a lot to be panicking about: Voldemort had known that Malfoy had been lying to him and payment was due, and worse … his mother was roughly held captive, her wand gone, as was his aunt's.

Patently, Voldemort did not trust the Blacks not to try and rise against him to save one of their own, even if they were unarmed and out-numbered almost fifty-to-one.

Harry scanned the Chamber floor frantically until he saw Snape … _Severus' actions leading to your mother's death, were the greatest regrets of his life. Since then he has waited and waited, steadfastly looking for the chance to bring down the creature who killed Lily Evans._

Was Professor Dumbledore right? Had Snape really tried to save the Professor on the tower, or had the mis-fired Avada just been an accident? And even if it hadn't been an accident and the professor had been right, when it came to it, would Snape find the courage to act?

Draco Malfoy was now screaming for help, but Voldemort simply spoke over him.

"I could read you, Draco – after you had betrayed yourself by lying for the Mudblood." Voldemort indicated Hermione who, like Bellatrix and Narcissa, was held fast in a Death Eater grip. "I could read you patchily I will admit – your natural skill is extraordinary – but I could read you after I had detected that first outright lie. In a way though, I really should have expected it: the Black family was always a rule unto itself, such a quixotic strain running through it. Never reliable. Always prone to the sudden adoption of a lost cause, particularly at the point when it seemed least capable of being won."

From the vantage of his great, un-natural height, Voldemort looked down upon Draco Malfoy.

"You have attempted to deceive me, Draco, but in a way you are also on trial for the sins of your entire family: the bold, shifting, remarkable, at times idealistic, at times romantic, sometimes even valiant, Black family."

"He's not a Black - _he's a Malfoy!"_ shrieked his mother, her voice ringing in the cavernous Chamber, trying to gain any purchase for her son.

"Hardly," Voldemort drawled with an amused dismissal. "The Malfoys are ruthless pragmatists. Slippery, yes, self-interested, yes – but because of that completely trustworthy, when one's interests coincide. For instance, would a Malfoy have rejected that final offer I made to Draco: for him to cleanse his sins and re-affirm his fealty by killing the Mudblood? A Malfoy would have accepted that offer, they would have calculated the odds, discerned where their best interest lay and, ruefully, sacrificed her - a stubborn-hearted Black never would."

Voldemort was almost contemplative now, eyeing Malfoy with his head slightly on one side.

"Draco has all the appearance of a Malfoy but he is a Black within, with all the mercurial, unpredictable, impulsive, impetuous, extravagance to which that line is heir."

Voldemort lazily turned and surveyed the Death Eaters.

"The Blacks have betrayed me more than once. In their own way they are brave but traitorous, and now a payment is due. But let not History testify that Lord Voldemort is unfair, that Lord Voldemort is not judicial: Draco shall have a trial. And who shall prosecute? Who is it among you who wishes to prove their loyalty to me? Why, it has all been arranged: it shall be his father."

Draco Malfoy gasped, his gaze jerking toward his father.

Lucius Malfoy, born of the House of Malfoy, bowed low to the Death Eaters - as though prosecuting his own son in a rigged show-trial was an honour. A slippery, self-interested, ruthless, pragmatic Malfoy indeed.

Narcissa Malfoy screamed her rage: "_You filth! You low-born scion of pigs!"_

Hidden above in the gloom of the Chamber, Harry had to hand it to them: the Blacks were lineage-obsessed to the last.

He wondered why Voldemort was even bothering with some trumped-up court-case when he was intending to somehow do-in Malfoy anyway for reasons of his own immortality. But then he got it. The proud, vain, egotistical, Voldemort couldn't bear the thought of even any tinge of cowardice being attached to his name. What had he kept going on about in the Chamber that time? All about bravery and how he admired courage? Voldemort intended to preside over history, he couldn't tolerate the thought that it would record him as a weakling who had somehow stolen his longevity from someone tied up, helpless and unable to stop him. Voldemort shriveled from having history record him as what he really was: a thief and a coward.

"Father! Dad, _don't!"_

Voldemort simply rode over Draco Malfoy's shrieks for quarter, "It is a capital crime against my royal state: the penalty will be death."

"Father, _help!"_

As Lucius Malfoy turned toward his son, there wasn't so much as a nerve twitching in his temple: _"BE SILENT!"_

The Chamber rang at the great, resonating shout, and then all fell still.

Even Narcissa Malfoy's denunciations were temporarily halted.

Malfoy stood alone, shivering with fright at the stake.

Lucius Malfoy turned, cloak swirling, flint-eyed.

"Let the trial of my deceptive, faithless son begin!"

xxxxx

But like Hermione's expulsion, it was no trial, there was no defense, instead it was a heated listing of any and every sin Lucius Malfoy could think to fling at his son: Draco Malfoy's death was a certainty, but Lucius Malfoy's standing was still in the balance. Lucius Malfoy had disgraced himself over the diary and had also held command at the Department of Mysteries fiasco.

Lucius Malfoy was as much on trial as Draco Malfoy: but he had a chance of getting off.

All he had to do was sacrifice his son.

"… deceitful, foolish, weak, incapable of murdering Dumbledore even though he held him captive …"

"I did it for us!" shrieked Malfoy, "I did it for the family! I didn't know who would win!"

Harry was sure that was a lie – Draco Malfoy could never have killed Dumbledore no matter what, the Professor's offer of sanctuary had simply been the excuse Malfoy needed to stop.

"See?" Lucius Malfoy swirled about, "He even _admits_ his betrayal!"

Harry's fist clenched at the sheer unfairness of it.

Lucius Malfoy swiveled back.

"… a necklace? Poisoned wine? A slew of idiotic plans! Too gutless to do what was the simplest and most able plan: to simply _stab_ Dumbledore to death! He would have been caught, but success would have been assured! Were he truly of our brotherhood he would have sacrificed himself for our Dark Lord!"

Utterly ludicrous of course, but that wasn't the point: it was theatre, it was _appearances_.

Forced to watch, Narcissa Malfoy was screaming every insult she could think of at Lucius Malfoy.

Bellatrix Black simply spat in his direction.

Draco Malfoy tried to voice pleas and objections but he was over-ridden.

Hermione ferociously wriggled, trying to break free of the hand which was now gagging her.

But they were in the minority: most of the Death Eaters were jeering and leering with expressions of savage delight.

Only Snape and Wormtail were not. Snape looked impassive whereas Wormtail was almost squeaking with pained anxiety. Harry recalled Malfoy's statement during the bank-raid: that Wormtail knew lots of things if only you could be bothered to talk to him. Malfoy must have been one of the few people who ever spoke to Wormtail.

Staring down at the spitting Lucius Malfoy, Harry was horribly reminded of the trial of Barty Crouch, the teenaged blond-haired boy who had been condemned to the care of the Dementors by his prosecuting father. He had a stabbing recollection of something Sirius had later intimated: that Barty Crouch hadn't been guilty as charged when he was sent to Azkaban, that he was found in the company of Death Eaters, certainly – but he might simply have been in the wrong place at the wrong time …

Had Barty Crouch gone mad in Azkaban and only _then_ truly joined the Death Eaters? Sirius had said that he'd been sent to Azkaban because his zealous father had been determined to save himself by publicly discarding a discredited son … _Anything that threatened to tarnish his reputation had to go … Crouch's fatherly affection stretched just far enough to give his son a trial and, by all accounts, it wasn't much more than an excuse for Crouch to show how much he hated the boy … _

The only difference between then and now was that Crouch Snr. may have once loved his son, but Harry knew with a dawning, cold certainty that Lucius Malfoy never had. He just knew it, from as far back as Borgin and Burkes … _Come, Draco … a thief and a plunderer may be all he is fit for…_What he had said to Malfoy earlier: _He treats you like a dog! I saw you together that time in Borgin and Burkes … He didn't even waste whole sentences on you!_

Battered by words, Malfoy was now petrified and pleading as the mass of the Death Eaters grew febrile and horribly excited.

A horribly wolfish reek came up off the feverishly eager Greyback.

"Father … Father, _please_ …!"

" … tiresome, abject, fit for nothing … a pathetic, honourless disgrace to his House …"

Hermione spat aside the hand that gagged her.

"Stop it! _Stop it!"_ she shouted.

Lucius Malfoy shimmered with glee for a second; he looked as though he'd been handed a gift, he carried on without remorse.

"He is even a _protector of Mud-filth!" _He scythed a finger in Hermione's direction, "Look! See? The evidence is before us! There she is! He chose to lie to the Dark Lord to shield a witch of no wizarding blood at all!"

Hermione looked like she was either going to burst into tears at the sheer injustice of it or bite someone.

"…a stain upon the name of Malfoy … a blot upon the History of my House …"

"I'm sorry, Father! Whatever it was, _I'm sorry!_ I never meant it!"

Draco Malfoy was screaming for his life.

"… a mis-begotten, mewling brat … a cowardly whelp …"

"I renounce you!" screamed Narcissa at Lucius Malfoy. "I renounce you! I renounce you as a husband! I renounce you as a man! I renounce any love for you! _I renounce the name of Malfoy!"_

Lucius Malfoy flinched for a second at that but then continued. After all, he could always have other wives, he could always have other sons.

"… a mere creature of ill-faith …"

"I am your son!" yelled Malfoy. 

Lucius Malfoy rounded, raging.

"You are no son of mine! I have no son – _I never did!"_

Draco Malfoy abruptly silenced as though he'd been smacked.

"You were a _creature!_ You were a feeding leech! You were an embarrassment to me! Without wit, without accomplishments, without anything that might have made you an adornment to my name, you were an ever-noticeable collection of failures! A source of continual, public humiliation! You were a pathetic, worthless wretch!"

The Chamber went totally silent.

Even the Death Eaters now gazed with round eyes.

Draco Malfoy looked like he'd been plunged into deadly cold ice.

"Well at least you have been well-guarded in your upbringing, Draco – rather a clever use of those trolls, I can congratulate Lucius on that. And despite what Lucius might say, I regard you as clever -"

"Big of you!" Malfoy's voice was tearstained but spitting.

"- and determined, quick-witted and resourceful; brave too, in your own way. You would make a worthy heir for any man, Draco. I would have been proud to have you as my own son."

"Sure, except when it comes to that 'killing-me' thing!"

Draco Malfoy had shot beyond any judicious sense of self-preservation. He knew he was going to die. It had been made quite clear. Begging wasn't going to help. No amount of groveling, trimming or tacking would get him out of it. He wasn't going to talk his way out of this one, so he might as well shout his mouth off right the way through it instead.

Sweaty, covered in the debris of snotty tears, spitting out insults, he'd die as he'd lived: obnoxious.

He was now roped to the stake much as Harry had once been roped to Voldemort's father's gravestone: in this case, a tight, continuous binding from chest-height down to ankle.

His throat was bared.

To Narcissa's screams and Bellatrix's hisses – neither could help Malfoy, they were both so closely guarded - Voldemort had outlined his fate: Malfoy was to become a soul-hollowed shell, a living, pulsing receptacle for what was left of the soul and mind of Voldemort who would then slip his rotten body and accommodate a new one.

"Not that there's much of your soul left," Malfoy's voice was a half-sob, "you'd only need something the size of a worm!"

"There are parts of a man's soul which he does not need, Draco."

"You've got to say that – _seeing as_ _you've lost most of yours already!"_

Figures moved about the bound Malfoy, positioning implements.

"Dad! _DAD!"_

Despite having been disowned by him, Malfoy – desperate – screamed for his father anyway: he was all he had left.

His father looked down his nose in distaste.

Malfoy looked about him and almost started crying from pure fright; when his voice came it was a high, trembling, tearful.

"I hope I choke you! I hope my body rejects you! I hope it dies! I hope you have to walk around in another rotten shell!"

"Oh, that will hardly happen, Draco. This has been planned far too well. This has been planned from before your birth. This has been planned from when you were in the womb. You were sanctified to my cause and bred for my eventual use."

Sanctified? Bred? 

"Dad! – _DAD!"_

"It was always planned so, Draco: of all the possible offspring available to me, you were the Chosen One."

There was a pause in which Voldemort stood before the tied-up Malfoy.

Shocked, hot-eyed and shivering, Draco Malfoy did the only thing left to him: he spat at him.

xxxxxx

"… I am of a dark lineage, connected to all the other Dark Lords who came before me – Grindelwald, Hecubo, Maleficus … back through the course of time, each learning from the previous, each building knowledge to be more powerful than the last. I am the latest link in a chain of darkness. I was always meant to pass the accumulated knowledge on to another – to a worthy successor - but then, why should I? Why become one link, when I could become the ever-lasting, final one?"

Voldemort was off on one.

Stuck in his cramped vantage point high up in the statue and using the mirror to try and scan below him, Harry recalled that Voldemort always was a gabby git. In the graveyard that time? Gab. In the Chamber the first time? Gab.

If the Basilisk got in by accident, he could probably talk it to death!

Harry tried not to shuffle too much in the eyehole: there was the sand of centuries on the floor and he didn't want to disturb any and send it trickling down the face of the statue like a tell-tale tear.

He was literally staring through Slytherin's eyes: yet he could not seem to do anything. He could get a few spells off it he had to, but what good would it do? Shooting Voldemort was no use, he couldn't be killed until his Horcruxes were, and even if he aimed at a Horcrux and hit it, he didn't exactly see himself destroying it with a Reducto! Jumping down and running about wasn't a clever option either: not without some big, fat distraction. But he couldn't think of any other way to get out. If he went back down the passageway, then even assuming he could still get out the other end, that left him only the option of using Parseltongue to get the main doors open – and swinging open a couple of doors the size of something on an air-craft hangar wasn't any less conspicuous than leaping down with his wand in his fist and yelling 'Ah-ha!'.

He tried to remember how he had destroyed the first of the Horcruxes: he had killed it really. Stabbed at it in a way that would kill a human being. Was that it? That you had to attack the Horcruxes in a manner designed to kill – but you didn't kill the object, you killed the bit of soul inside it?

Even then, the cup and the locket were Founder objects which had magical defenses: whoever destroyed those Horcruxes would die doing it.

How had he killed the first one? Stabbed it and … poisoned it. It was the poison that had done the job really: Basilisk fang.

And there was a Basilisk hanging around out there somewhere right now …

The Basilisk.

If nothing else, it would create screaming chaos … not to mention cause a huge distraction.

It might kill a lot of people too … but only people who were quite happy to shortly kill Draco Malfoy in some bazaar fashion. And okay, so Hermione, Ginny and Snape were also there and … well, he now felt he had to include them … Malfoy's mum and his mad-cow aunty.

Malfoy too, supposing he wasn't dead by then.

But even adding all those people together, there were a lot more Death Eaters than there were them. On the law of averages, more Death Eaters had to die than not.

And now he was thinking like Scrimgeour. Oh – great!

At least it was something to _do _though. He couldn't just sit here, do nothing and then watch Malfoy die: an upside-down reflection in a back-to-front mirror. But how could he call the Basilisk? He hadn't done it the first time, Riddle had. What had he said? _Speak to me oh_ … something-something.

_Speak to me, oh …_

_Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four!_

Harry whispered the words in Parseltongue – easy enough achieved given the fact that he could see so many carved snakes, not to mention Nagini.

He raised his voice slightly.

"_Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four …"_

Wasn't that supposed to make the statue's mouth drop open and the Basilisk come out?

Nothing happened.

He whispered the words over and over, trying to get some echoing effect down the tunnel which would see the words carry.

_Oh come on, you ruddy-great snake!_

Then there was a huge scraping of stone below him and he tipped the mirror, trying to get a view of the mouth. But it wasn't the mouth: the mouth was firmly shut. Instead it was the dais upon which Malfoy was held, sliding further into the Chamber: the scrape of stone on stone.

Whatever they were going to do to Malfoy, they were going to do it soon.

Harry tuned back in on Voldemort who had patently not shut up in outlining his plans for re-incarnation.

"… Once I was a spirit, adrift in the forests of Albania, then I was re-made of my the bone of my own father and how I shall become my own son. As most of you already know, I realised early in my immortality that although immortal, I would age: age into a rotten husk, it was inevitable -"

"Then that Muggle statement's wrong: what doesn't kill you doesn't make you stronger - _it makes you look like crap!"_

Harry didn't need to use the mirror to know that was the tearstained, terrified but raging Malfoy.

"- but how to avoid it? The answer was surely to leap from body to body as the ages past. I have always had the power to possess bodies, but their life-span shortened: their owners do struggle so to re-win them. The solution was to have a body built for me, a young, strong, healthy body, one specially selected for its suitability."

Even Harry was listening now.

"So, one was created. With the help of Mortlake, my expert in experimental breeding, those few of us privy to the plan created the ideal vessel: young, strong, healthy, alluring; I had been born with the boon of beauty, I saw no reason not to regain it -"

Harry was spiked by the utterly inappropriate thought that if Malfoy ever got out of this alive, he'd have an ego the size of Sheffield.

"- every advantage that could be had, was got. He was made as perfect as could be -"

"Oh, I feel _so special!" _shrieked Malfoy with wet-eyed, snot-nosed, tearful anger.

Maybe not Sheffield, after all? Maybe just a small village in the Cotswolds? But needless to say, one with a lot of money and fancy cars.

"- perfectly symmetrical, even his _blood_ was amended. It was refined and altered. What, I ask, is the most powerful blood? Dragon's blood! Dragon's blood, with it's properties of healing and long life – _immortality!"_

Harry felt seized by a great, freezing slowness.

That dragon in Gringotts. It had been fascinated by Malfoy – it had been _smelling_ him. Taking in huge great draughts of his scent. He must have smelled like one of its own … one of its own young. No wonder it had crooned after him. It had never meant to hurt him. It never would have hurt him. Dragons were extremely protective of dragon-young. It had only wanted to ensure his safety.

"His blood has been utilised before … thin, refined, it does not clot easily, it is very valuable. Memory Charmed each time, Draco was bled prior to, and sometimes during, the year of the Triwizard Tournament; his blood was a key ingredient in the potion which resurrected me in the graveyard. Yes, bone of father, flesh of servant and blood of enemy were used, but what they were added to was a distillation of Draco's blood."

_It does not clot easily_ … _Did the school children really believe that Poppy Pomfrey was going to take any nonsense from a thirteen-year-old Draco Malfoy? She wouldn't have stood for shirking for a second! Certainly not over such an important matter as a Hippogriff's life!_ …It had taken months for Buckbeak's slash to heal; Madam Pomfrey would never have let Malfoy get away with faking it.

Harry recalled how very pale Malfoy had looked all that year, and what about that time when he'd staggered into the Yule Ball wearing a high necked frockcoat that made him look like a vicar? Had the blood been sucked out of his neck? Had Pansy Parkinson not been clinging to him that time, but holding him up?

"Draco was chosen because he was heir to handsomeness and beauty, he had a biddable father who would offer him up -"

"DAD!" 

"- and far more importantly, he was descended from the line of Slytherin. I would be much more likely to sustain a link with my new body were it connected to the same bloodline."

"Draco isn't an heir of Slytherin!" shrieked Narcissa, face red and blotched with tears of anger and fear. "By neither Malfoy, nor Black! There's no bloodline there!" "But there is, Narcissa. I discovered something which not even the Blacks knew about themselves: they were directly descended from Salazar Slytherin himself!" 

There were gasps at that.

"Do you think Draco was my first choice? Of course not! I wished to slough the shell of my ageing form years ago – before I was accidentally banished. I was at the height of my powers, victory was within my grasp, I wanted a new, young, beautiful form. I chose Regulus Black – the Black-family's acknowledged heir!"

There was an abrupt choking sound – Harry guessed it was either someone being Anapneo'd to death or it was Bellatrix Black seething with rage.

His money was on Bellatrix Black.

"I let Regulus see into my mind some small way so he would understand it, understand the honour of it -"

And that was how Regulus had uncovered the fact of the Horcrux locket in the cave, he must have seen a fractured sliver of memory.

"- but something went awry and Regulus disappeared -"

"Ooh – what a shocker! Wonder why, eh?" That was Malfoy again, voice on the cracked edge of hysterical laughter now.

Voldemort turned to Malfoy.

"Draco, you were born to serve me. That was all you ever were: the Chosen One. You are nothing other than what I and your father made of you: your blood, your destiny, even your name."

Even your name …

_Draco Malfoy …_

_Draco …_

_Dragon …_

Yes, even Malfoy's name had never been his own: it was Voldemort's little joke. Malfoy's name, a sign of what he was: an implement, a device, not a person.

"And now for the ceremony, Draco, where I will become you and you will become … nothing. The ceremony has all been arranged, the rite has long been devised. We will exsanguinate you of your precious blood -"

"DAD!" 

There was a great struggle at that and Harry knew it was Malfoy's mum, aunt and Hermione – all grimly wrestling afresh.

Harry desperately raised his voice to a hoarse whisper, hoping it would carry.

"_Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four!"_

Where was that sodding snake? 

If it would just come, it would give him the crashing diversion he needed to be able to get down there and do something!

"– then I will drink your blood, I shall bathe in it -"

"Don't! Dad - DON"T!" 

Harry tried not to think of the implements surrounding Malfoy: knives and tubes and bowls and a great basin.

"- absorb it into my very spirit. Then, Draco, via that tiny crack, that tiny split in your soul – the split that occurred when the Chosen One finally killed – I shall prise open your soul -"

"Stop! STOP!" 

"- break it into pieces and cast it from your body, making a space which I shall inhabit."

Struggling wildly against his bonds – the struggle of an animal that knows it wants to live - Draco Malfoy flew into a tumult of truly quality swearing. Harry thought it was wasted though: Voldemort came from an age in which 'a cur' and 'a scoundrel' were the worst of oaths, so Harry supposed that the sobbed, screamed insults to a 'wheeny little ratfuck bitch' were probably completely incomprehensible.

Voldemort and Draco Malfoy had never really spoken the same language – and it wasn't just Parseltongue that was the difference.

Two masked and robed Death Eaters approached Malfoy's dais, one bearing a bronze bowl and the other a black blade that seemed to shine almost as though made of glass. They walked slowly and bore them as though conveying hallowed objects.

Typical Death Eaters: they couldn't bear to see themselves as sordid, they had to dress it up as sacred.

They handed the bowl to Wormtail who, shaking almost as much as Malfoy, face miserable with fear, voice squeaking, held it under Malfoy's chin.

Wormtail had his eyes screwed shut, looking away from Malfoy, whimpering.

"They know you're here!" shrieked Malfoy, clenched against the on-coming blade. "If you don't run now – they'll get you!"

Some of the Death Eaters flashed suddenly uneasy glances between them.

"My Lord, maybe we should leave – we have the boy, we can do this later!" Snape stepped up, voice hissing, urgent, tense.

Was the Professor right? Was Snape not a Death Eater after all? Was this an effort to save Malfoy, or was Snape just keen to hurry things along, get out of the Chamber and do it later anyway?

The knife came closer.

The bowl under Malfoy's chin wobbled wildly in Wormtail's grasp; Wormtail looked around twitching, hoping for someone to tell him what to do – hoping for someone to order him to stop?

Harry looked about him furiously. Where was that bloody Basilisk? 

Harry hissed for the Basilisk as loudly as he dared – but he couldn't shout, there would be no point in calling it as a diversion if they knew it was coming!

"Draco, I am Lord Voldemort and this is your time to die. Your youth, your health, your vibrancy -"

Malfoy's voice hit a screamed pitch.

"DAD!"

The knife-blade came closer. Malfoy looked about wildly.

"Dad - Professor Snape - HELP!" 

Snape jolted and raised his wand in a quick, fast arc – but what if he wasn't going to save Malfoy, what if -

Harry leapt out of the eye-socket, caught himself by the heel and levitated himself to the ground in a nasty tangle of limbs.

There were cries of astonishment and some slight panic: the Death Eaters were afraid that he was not alone. Harry looked up at Voldemort, and clutched his wand as he pushing his glasses up his nose and his messy hair out of his eyes.

"You're not Lord Voldemort, you're Tom Riddle: born of an inbred witch and a Muggle man. You're not 'Lord' anything."

There was a silence. Death Eaters shot each other startled looks. A half-blood? Some took a step back.

Snape looked astonished at the sight of Harry, and Bellatrix Black's face held a sudden, wild, hopeful light: Harry had never thought he'd see the day when Bellatrix Black would be glad to see him.

Not that it would do her much good, Harry thought. He didn't have the remotest idea of a plan. He was his father's son, and a boy after Sirius' own heart. He'd never be anything other than rash. It was in his nature. It was who and what he was. He didn't have it in him to be circumspect, any more than Hermione had it in her to accept that she was ever wrong, or Malfoy to accept that anyone else was ever right.

Had he said that in the Chamber he could 'die trying'? It looked like he was going to 'try dying'. And why not? All the terrible mistakes he'd made, and he knew he'd never learn. He'd murdered Sirius – he had. He knew it. Malfoy had been right about that. He was only ever good for getting killed.

"Is that you, Potter?" Malfoy's voice was a croak of disbelief, hoarse from all his shouting. Roped as he was, he couldn't turn about to have a proper look. "You turned up? You turned up amidst a gaggle of Death Eaters when it was all too late?"

He started to laugh, the kind of high, jagging laughter that might not actually stop, "With this 'Chosen One' thing, it's finally official: I'm good-looking and you're really, really _stupid!"_

_"Accio!"_

Voldemort shot a spell and Harry's wand flew from his hand.


	39. Chapter 39

Title: (Chapter 39)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 

**Chapter 39**

Okay, yes he was rash. Yes, he didn't have it in him to be circumspect. Yes, he was probably only ever good for getting killed; but he was also a boy who found it hard to give up a fight.

He was now down in the Chamber and he still had something to aim for, something to fight for, something to keep struggling toward however unclear the way: he could try and save Hermione, Malfoy and Ginny.

Harry desperately tried to take the advantage with anything he had left: if he could just stop the Death Eaters from immediately _killing _anyone it might give time for something to happen!

He stood up, yelling.

"What Malfoy said is true! Destruction is coming. Rufus Scrimgeour is going to raze the castle on top of you. He knows you're all here! Your best chance of survival is if you leave right now. Voldemort is going to get you all killed!"

The fluttering apprehension among the Death Eaters at his shocking arrival still had not yet settled: if he could only just keep _pressing._

Malfoy's cloak had been kicked to one side and tumbled amidst it was his casually dropped wand. Could Harry reach that? Could he use it even if he did?

"This place is going to be destroyed in the next couple of minutes!"

The stirring among the Death Eaters increased, their cloaks shifting now, some mumbled voices.

Wormtail looked about at them twitchily, wondering which way they'd go – hoping it would be against Voldemort?

Harry's gaze veered around wildly, trying to take it all in at once, but panic only giving him snapshots: Hermione looking horrified as though having one person there whom she cared about was the last thing she wanted; Ginny looking up with a sudden, tearstained hope – as though he was the hero who really would save her.

Malfoy looking at him as though he'd completely lost his gobstones.

Roped to the stake as he was, Harry saw that Malfoy's eyes were gleaming – shining with complete and utter disbelief at Harry's stupidity.

Down here, that faint sweet smell was stronger.

It reminded Harry of that time in the bank vault.

Ginny gave a hopeful little cry and Harry's gaze darted to her – taking in her almost pleading appearance. Save Ginny? He wasn't sure he could save anyone. He'd leapt down from that statue without any sort of plan, it had just been a desperate, instinctive delaying action in an attempt to forestall Malfoy's execution.

Malfoy, among others, had previously spat at him for shirking responsibilities, for squirming away from facing up to things he'd done. As he mentally thrashed about for something concrete, part of him wondered if this was just him being unable, this time, to take responsibility for _not _doing something?

"If you stay here, you'll all be killed!" he yelled, not sure of what else _to _say.

But the Death Eater shifting petered out as Voldemort then spoke.

With his voice carrying clearly, he made a show of affecting to sound amused, engaging, almost as though he were at a social gathering. The immense shock he must have felt at Harry's sudden appearance was well hidden. When he addressed Harry, his voice held all the warm tones of someone meeting an old acquaintance at a tea-party, one whom he had not seen in a while.

"Well, Harry Potter, how long has it been? You know, I don't believe we've met since that episode at the Department of Mysteries? Pity I'm going to kill you."

He gave his cold, high laugh and some of the Death Eaters followed suit, but not all, and some of the laughter sounded nervous and hollow.

They were supposed to be alone in the Chamber, they were supposed to have gone undetected, but here was, of all people, _Harry Potter?_ And others above them knew they were there?

It was all very different from the easy promises they had been given.

Harry sensed the atmosphere and pressed on, hoping that if he could just keep talking, then somehow someone might not get the simple idea of just raising a wand and killing him.

"They know you're here! The Ministry knows! They destroyed all your Inferi and your Giants are scattered – your Dementors are dust! Even the Puffs have been annihilated - it didn't even take magic! Just the school's owl and cat population: didn't think of a solution so simple as that, did you?"

Apprehension rippled across the Death Eaters, but Voldemort sounded totally unconcerned. He called out, voice high and carrying as before.

"But if the Ministry knows, Harry, then why are you here alone?"

The Death Eaters quieted somewhat.

Harry stumbled for a reply.

"It hardly seems likely, does it?" continued Voldemort in that high, vaguely sing-song way that was meant to show how much he patronised Harry and held him in contempt. "The Ministry's favourite little Chosen One left to stand alone?" He adopted a rueful, chiding note, "_Chosen_, that is, when they are not trying to kidnap you."

Some skittish laughter rang among the Death Eaters.

Harry looked about nervously.

Voldemort turned and called out like an actor on the stage stealing everyone else's lines for cheap applause.

"I don't believe that anyone even knows that the great, the wonderful, the _noble_ Harry Potter is even here!"

There was a more solid laughter at that.

Voldemort carried on, slyly regarding Harry with a sideways look even as he addressed his 'audience'.

"You see, Harry Potter's great weakness is that he thinks he's a _hero_ -"

There was more laughter at that.

"- Harry Potter has a great weakness for heroics. Like all Gryffindors, Potter's true wish is not to be inherently correct, or good, or even successful: Potter's true wish is to be _admired!"_

As their laughter carried, the Death Eaters seemed much more sure now.

"They will not destroy the school in an effort to bring it tumbling down upon the Chamber. Either Potter is here alone and thus they do not know about us, or they _do _know that he is here and they would never risk destroying him." Voldemort raised his voice again, calling out in a sneering, mocking, contemptuous tone, "They would never destroy the little prophecy-boy who's going to _save_ them all!"

Harry yelled over the swelling laughter.

"Rufus Scrimgeour will! He'll do it. You're not dealing with Fudge any more!"

"You're lying!" snapped Voldemort. He turned to his audience, voice now more airy, a show of confidence, "Harry Potter is lying – anything to put off his inevitable death!" He turned back to Harry with a swirl of his cloak, "You're going to become the generator of my final Horcrux, Harry Potter. I always intended that: how considerate of you to deliver yourself so promptly."

There was ribald laughter at that.

Harry cut across it in a loud, ringing tone.

"You don't believe Scrimgeour will do it? You think I'm lying? Fine! Why don't you check - _Riddle?_"

There were gasps at Harry's shouted use of Voldemort's real name; it had almost certainly been decades since anyone there had dared to use it.

"Why don't you use that Leglimens skill of yours to see inside me, eh? Oh, but I forgot! You can't, can you?" Harry took a breath and roared out, "_Because the last time you tried, it nearly killed you!"_

Everything fell silent.

Harry's words hung in the air – resonating.

The Death Eaters flicked looks at each other.

Voldemort's gaze sliced to Harry and Harry suddenly knew that Voldemort was going to kill him on the spot. Nothing fancy, nothing theatrical, no great dramatic gesture, just the clearing away of an increasingly dangerous impediment with an abrupt sweep of the wand.

"Oi! You lot!" Malfoy screamed to the Death Eaters. "You should do a runner while you still can! It's only a matter of time before the Ministry gets you or Snake-face _kills you all!_"

Gasps flew among the Death Eaters at the insult, but Malfoy had nothing left to lose and yelled on, deliberately distracting Voldemort. "He killed Travers for making a single mistake! And I bet Travers wasn't even there when it actually happened. You think you won't make any mistakes?"

Harry didn't know who Travers was, what he had done or what had happened to him, but Malfoy was back in the game – frantically playing whatever cards were left to him in an effort to stop Harry from being immediately killed.

Harry had always thought that Malfoy was a bit like a really watered-down, milksop version of his father – but maybe he was really more like a ramped-up version of Phineas Nigellus?

It was a pity that they wouldn't live long enough to find out.

"You think none of you will make mistakes?" Malfoy yelled on.

There was a deeply uncomfortable shuffling and muttering at that.

"You're thinking 'maybe I'll make my own Horcrux so I'll be safe'? Well wake up to the fact that you're just going to be a slave! There aren't going to be any 'Death Eaters', there is no 'we', there'll just be Snake-bloke and everyone else! There is no 'us and them' – there'll just be him and everyone else! As far as -"

Malfoy's words were cut off by his own screams as Voldemort Crucio'd him.

Narcissa shrieked.

Harry gasped in horror.

Hermione struggled, "_Stop it_ – _STOP IT!"_ but she was gagged again by the clamping hand of a Death Eater.

Malfoy's screams became screamed words, _"Scrimgeour knows you're here! He'll bring the roof down – I'D DO IT!"_

An anonymous Death Eater moved at that, panicked; Voldemort swirled and slashed him in two with a Sectumsempra.

There was a horrible, wet, slopping sound as the body shifted on it's length, then the bottom and top half slid apart on a diagonal. The two halves sliding to the floor like shanks of bleeding meat, lying there, twitching in a spreading pool of deep-red.

There was a sudden, terrified silence.

No-one even dared gasp.

Even Malfoy had stopped howling – the force of the Sectumsempra had cut the power to the Crucio – and now he hung limp in his bonds, mouth open, eyes closed, head hanging forward, silky white hair flopping in his damp face. He was slumped forward slightly – having writhed convulsively under the Crucio had forced the ropes to give by just a few millimeters.

Harry tried to check Malfoy's state as the blond boy hung forward. He looked dazed, his eyes taking on the almost reflective, sheening blankness of someone too stunned to think.

That sweet smell was like crushed flowers now – Harry was surprised that no-one but him seemed to notice it.

"Shall we have no more objections?"

Assailed by Malfoy's accusations and the panic of the Death Eaters, Voldemort's tone shook slightly as he fought to regain his customary ascendancy. When he spoke next, there was the undertone of threat. "I shall use the weapon now – that should allay any doubts as to our impregnability within the Chamber. It will annihilate all the unworthy."

There was a tremendous flutter of voices as Voldemort strode down the Chamber. The Death Eaters hurriedly parted before him, falling back on either side, some careening backwards in their panic.

Voldemort scythed through them like a great, black blade, pacing toward the altar which held the box and the ring.

Harry started after him but didn't even get half a step before he felt the grip of rough hands on his arms and the jab of a wand-point at his throat.

Unarmed there was nothing he could do but watch, appalled.

Angry, and without any of his customary theatrical ado, Voldemort picked up the ring and abruptly fitted it to one of the irregular patches of rough carving on the box-wall – and then twisted it in a half-turn to the left, like a key opening a lock.

Even from the distance of half-way down the Chamber, the keying action could be heard. It was far louder and more echoing than it ought to have been. It was the horrible _thunk _of the opening of a great vault door, with the sound out of all proportion to the size of the objects which made it.

Harry felt an uncontrollable shiver. There was something terribly ominous about all this. Terribly resonating, terribly powerful, terribly _final._

Voldemort turned exuding a smug vindication, his confidence climbing, he airily waved to the combined box and key, the expansive gesture of a magician revealing a prestige.

"The Gryffindor ring and the Slytherin reliquary!"

For a second, Harry hysterically thought Voldemort sounded as though he was calling out the names of two winners in a prize competition.

"For centuries, the ring was in the custody of the Peverell family: dowry from a female descendent of Gryffindor. But even re-named, it was still his ring. The box was left to me by Grindelwald, with the knowledge that it was originally the property of Slytherin himself. But only I knew that the ring and the box were meant to act together. Only I knew what they were for – I who have read the Chronicle of Slytherin held in the Great Repository!"

He turned to the box and ring, glowing with conviction – if his horrid green-tinged skin could ever be said to have glowed.

"Slytherin devised the great Chamber to hold a weapon, one that would save them were the castle ever breached and overrun by filth. Still friends with Gryffindor, he wished to share the power and the responsibility. Hence the weapon could only be triggered by the box and the ring acting in unison."

Harry got it: it was as a joint action, like a nuclear safety key.

"It was Salazar's only mistake of course: Gryffindor would never have had the courage to take such personal responsibility and help trigger the weapon. When Salazar told his worthless colleague of even the very existence of the weapon, Gryffindor was appalled and it signaled the beginning of the end of their so-called friendship."

Harry thought that Voldemort sounded - for a second – as if part of him had never quite left the school playground.

"Gryffindor branded it a wicked thing, as he would never have had the determination to use it! He was _unworthy!"_

With a savage gesture, Voldemort turned the 'key' the whole way and then the Chamber echoed to the terrifying grating of stone on stone – huge unseen blocks levering and twisting beneath the floor of the Chamber. Death Eaters looked up and about them, almost half-crouching, nervous at the tremendous sound.

Harry was actually shivering with nerves.

At the far end of the Chamber, the floor rumbled with the tremendous vibrations causing many to almost lose their balance, arms flailing wide for some stability. There was a horrible, ossified, grinding sound; the screech of some mighty mechanism gearing into action after a millennium of waiting.

The floor shuddered and then something seemed to snap and a block of stone erupted through it, shattering the paving flags above it, jabbing up from the floor with all the power of a punched fist.

Dirt and small bits of rock slid and rolled about it as the block settled: about a yard square and waist-high.

The whole Chamber looked on in various mixtures of horror, trepidation, eagerness and heated excitement.

Harry craned as much as he could, given the wand jammed into his neck: on the top of the block was a large, smooth, oval indentation and within it something that looked like an upraised, upturned stone bowl, rising up from the oval indentation on a central stone stem.

Voldemort strode the remaining length of the Chamber to it.

"Here," he announced all behind him, "you may view."

He casually waved his wand and above him appeared a magnified image of the stone plinth: all looked up to see it.

The stone … _mushroom_ – that was the best description Harry could offer himself – had a shape carved into the top of it: the slightly larger than life-size shape of a human hand, with a lightning-bolt pattern across the palm.

Voldemort contemplated the whole without concern.

"The box and the ring, the mechanism they forged together, useful only here."

He let his hand linger in the air above the incised hand-shape – someone was meant to place their palm there, that was the next step in engaging the mechanism.

Looking about wildly, Harry saw that Hermione was all eyes – gaze locked onto Voldemort's hand.

Voldemort sounded almost meditative.

"It can only be initiated by an Heir of the blood."

His hand hovered there but then he stiffened slightly and then withdrew.

"Not quite yet, I think -"

Harry felt a slump of appalled relief. Was Voldemort secretly not confident he could set it off and was looking for excuses not to? Was there still hope?

Harry almost yelled when the real reason came.

"I will initiate it when I am in my new shape: when I have a pure-blood form, when any last lingering stench of my father is removed."

He was going to set the weapon off alright – but he was going to kill Malfoy first.

Well, not quite first, as it emerged that he was going to kill Harry Potter the very first of all.

Voldemort called from away down the Chamber.

"Fitting that you arrived now, Harry. Before I step into Draco, I have the strength to make one more Horcrux, my sixth, my soul into seven parts. I have the Slytherin receptacle" – he meant the box - "and now I have the opportunity." He viewed the box speculatively, " I was wise enough to choose objects powerful in their own right: anyone who would try to annihilate one such Horcrux, dies."

Harry didn't feel it was the time to point out that Professor Dumbledore had destroyed the ring Horcrux and lived for a year afterward: saved by Snape?

Malfoy snorted loudly with an hysterical, bitter edge, "God – who'd have thought it! Dead before I'm 18, but I _still_ get to outlive Harry Potter!"

Sometimes, Harry thought that Malfoy really did have an absolute gift for the totally inappropriate.

Voldemort gave a light laugh which filled the air, genuinely amused – he could afford to be.

"Courageous, Draco – in your own peculiar way." He turned so that his gaze could take in Harry and the bound Malfoy in one and he raised his voice to clearly address them both. "But essentially you are both foolish: it is a Dark Universe, far more dark than light, what a pity you both chose to oppose it in your separate ways …"

Voldemort looked dismissively at the Death Eaters cringing about him, mouth now shaped with disgust. "I have cowards at my service, but I had always hoped for followers such as Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, I have always valued bravery."

"Value _bravery?"_ Malfoy choked, outraged. "What you value is _obedience!"_

Voldemort turned on him with a swirl of his cloak, pacing back down the Chamber.

But Malfoy wasn't going to cringe, he was snarling as Voldemort approached.

"What? Come on – _what?"_ He indicated the Sectumsempra'd Death Eater with a jerk of his head – pretty much the only part of him he could actually move. "You're going to slash _me_ in two? Come on – I dare you! Come on and lose all that 'precious blood' and have it spilling all over the floor!"

He looked about angrily at all the timid, frozen Death Eaters, "You idiots! You could kill him right now if you wanted to! There's more of you than there is of him! It's a hundred to one in your favour! He can't kill you all! All you have to do is destroy those two remaining Horcruxes on that altar and after that he's just one more bloke with a wand!"

Voldemort Crucio'd him again.

And this time it was so hard that Malfoy couldn't form words, all he could do was scream.

Scream and scream and scream. Tortured, convulsive writhing whilst bound to a post.

It went on and on.

Horrified, Harry started kicking and struggling but simply felt a blow to the back of his head and felt the sharp sting of skin splitting and the trickle of his own blood. Narcissa was shrieking so loudly it was a painful, ringing sound. Unable to do anything but struggle futilely, Harry started screaming in panic himself. Snape stood, jaw clenched, teeth bared, but went rigid – there was nothing to be done, even if he did intend to do anything. Without those Horcruxes being destroyed, Voldemort could not be stopped.

Wormtail whimpered, hands wringing, gaze darting frantically about.

Malfoy screamed on.

Hermione bit through the hand of her captor, "Go on!" she shrieked at Voldemort, teeth bloody from the hand she had bitten, past all fear, past all self-preservation. Her words rang in the air from the sheer force of her passion. "Go on! If that's all you can do – do it! It's pathetic! Crucioing people who can't even lift a wand to defend themselves! You value courage?" She gathered all of her conviction and hurled it at Voldemort in a single scream, "– _Where's yours!"_

Harry froze in a kind of glorious, elated terror.

God – Hermione really gave it one when she went for it!

The power to the spell snapped.

Malfoy slumped, hanging forward in his slightly more loosened bonds, eyes with that almost reflective, sheening blankness again, hauling painfully for breath, screaming ceased, the sounds of his rasping breaths the only thing to be heard in the echoing Chamber.

It was hard to tell if Voldemort had really even meant to stop or wanted to – or whether he had simply been impelled to by the power of Hermione's accusation: that he was behaving like a coward.

He slid a glance toward Hermione, who glared at him.

He gave a quick half-laugh.

"Ahh – the righteous little Mudblood. Do not imagine, Draco, that she spoke up for you because she feels you are true-hearted. To her you are pathetic, thoughtless, demeaned … _beneath her_ - a heathen to be pitied and converted to the 'correct way' if it can be done, or patronised if it cannot."

Hermione's mouth pressed into a firm, angry line – but her gaze flinched away.

Malfoy gave a groan – hanging forward, hair all over his face.

Lucius Malfoy took the opportunity to curry favour with his Dark Lord, attempting even now to shore up his position.

He tried to undermine his son, even after he had just been tortured.

"Mercy, pity, compassion, Draco? Those are for the weak: people extend them unto others only because they fear a day when they may need them in return."

The sweat-slicked, tangle-haired, whey-faced Malfoy jerked his head up at that and hissed, his gaze so furious that his glare almost _glittered_ …

"You're wrong: they're not for the weak, they're for the strong."

Harry wanted to weep and laugh all at the same time, because Malfoy's thin, rarified, inhumanly-blond, glittering-eyed, pale-skinned, fine-boned face just occasionally held the expression of a bloke who might relish a punch-up outside a pub on a Saturday night.

"Draco," Lucius Malfoy wasn't going to be bested by his own child, "I think you will find that -"

"Shut up, Lucius."

It was Voldemort, his voice deeper and slower than usual, a note which sounded somehow more real than the high, clarion tones he usually affected. For once, his voice held an almost introspective, thick, ugly note of disgust, almost as though he was half talking to himself. "Just shut up."

He slid Lucius Malfoy a dark look; the Chamber went very quiet.

"Your father attacks you because he is a coward and ashamed, Draco. He was never worthy of you. He has been complicit in your fate – almost its prime actor - and now he wishes to take the rewards but cleanse himself of the stain."

Voldemort patently held Lucius Malfoy in contempt – but it was a contempt for crimes Voldemort had also committed. Was Voldemort casting dishonour upon Lucius Malfoy on order to exorcise his shame at his own unchivalrous actions?

"He has always resented you, Draco. Perhaps being filled with his own pride he simply resented the eventuality of bowing to the image of his own son. Why do you think he abandoned you at Hogwarts during the Christmas of the year of the Chamber, when there was danger at the school? He knew in some way that I was there, he was positioning you should I return." Voldemort's tone grew harsher and more attacking, "A peace-offering for having done nothing to find me after my banishment!"

Voldemort cast a ferocious glance at Lucius Malfoy.

"Did you think I did not realise that you had begun to hinge your plans upon my not returning? Your little riot at the Quidditch World Cup? You were attempting to set yourself at the head of a new order! You were among the first to run when my sign showed in the sky - you ran from the Dark Mark because you feared my return more than anyone!"

As Lucius Malfoy staggered a half-step back, frantically re-calculating his options, Voldemort turned to Draco Malfoy, "Your father is worthless, Draco. It is such a pity I could not keep you instead of him."

Away to one side, Ginny mewed in pathetic weeping - the blackened, thorny crown of the tiara now seemed to bite cruelly into her head. She tried to put a hand up to tug at it but it wouldn't come off.

Voldemort, annoyed, speared her with his gaze.

"Untouched, pureblooded and even a seventh child - so there is power there somewhere - she will make a suitable vessel for my issue. But as a person," Voldemort's expression quirked in distaste, "she is weak."

He sneered slightly, becoming derogatory.

"She could never take responsibility for her own life. Always thinking that if she could 'get Harry Potter', then somehow everything would fix itself. That she would be a _someone_."

She jerked a cry and Voldemort beheld her, "What's that are you thinking, Ginevra? Still telling yourself … _I didn't do anything …?"_

He shook his head: all undercut with disgust.

"But of course you did something - you took advantage. You knew it was wrong and you could have stopped it, but you didn't. You could never quite manage to screw yourself to it. Why do what was right, when you could do what was easy?"

He enfolded her in a contemptuous disdain.

"What a pathetic individual you are. All that time, effort, and determination, all feverishly devoted toward becoming Harry Potter's Girlfriend."

Ginny wept.

"But maybe you will be happy enough with me? After all," his voice adopted an inflection of snide taunting, "you always liked Tom far more than you liked Harry, he paid you so much more _attention."_

"_Stop it!"_ hissed Malfoy, twisting in his ropes.

Voldemort addressed him whilst still gazing at Ginny, "She never cared for you, Draco."

Malfoy flinched.

"Interesting: you are not unattractive, not without charm or wit, not even without a certain charisma and yet … you simply weren't Harry Potter. Poor Ginevra, so obsessed with Harry Potter, so fixated that no-one else would do: only Harry Potter – even though the real boy meant nothing to her either, it was the fantasy that was everything."

Ginny's eyes were now so red with crying that the whites were almost darkened.

Voldemort continued as though she were just some specimen that was his to experiment upon.

"The fantasy obliterated not just you and every other boy, Draco, but actually Harry too … Ginevra Weasley, she could have been wonderful but she chose to be pathetic."

Ginny put her hands to her wet face as though she was trying to hold herself in. If Harry hadn't been in such a dire situation with imminent death all around, he would have actually felt sorry for her.

"She could have been -?" Malfoy's voice was so thick with derision he wasn't going to even dress it up with wit. His sheening eyes reflected the greenish light of the Chamber. "Stop constructing excuses as to why she 'deserves' it. She could be Saint Ginevra of the Orphaned Panda Cubs and you'd still find fault – you'd have to in order to justify yourself!"

There was a silence and then -

_"I DON'T NEED YOUR PITY!"_

Malfoy was jolted into rearing back, shocked and wide-eyed at Ginny's furious, screaming attack on him, her face screwed up, her fists balled; standing in the half-shadow there was a glimmer of blackness about her eyes.

Malfoy blinked, mouth moving silently – he'd only been trying to help … he'd only …

Voldemort turned to him with something almost like sympathy.

"I told you she did not like you, Draco. You see, Ginevra only ever really respects someone when she cannot have them, the ones she can have, she does not want." He smiled a disconcerting, cool, incisive smile, "You should understand that Draco – after all, in that regard, she is just like yourself."

If Draco Malfoy could have taken a step back at that slap of a sentence, he would have.

"You always cared for her, Draco – but she never cared for you. After I could see into you, I could see the things you had done for Ginevra Weasley. You gave them back their wands in Umbridge's office. When you got my Death Eaters into Hogwarts, you saw her guarding the corridor and protected her with invisibility by blinding everyone with the Darkness Powder."

Malfoy, shivering, teeth chattering, spat out: "Your name'd be an anagram of 'I'm a stupid bastard', if it had the right letters in it!"

Voldemort laughed, "Ahhh, Draco – who would do almost anything than admit he actually had genuine feelings, hiding them to himself, hiding them from himself." Voldemort smiled that peeling, slicing smile again, "Hiding them because he is afraid that if truly holds them up to inspection, he will find that all he has is a gallery of faked works."

"_Shut the fuck up!"_ hissed Malfoy.

"Yes, a gallery of faked works: he knows his father never loved him, he has known it all along, deep in his soul. He has never had true friends: just servants and a set of shifting allegiances among his Slytherin school-fellows. His two efforts to make friends with Potter: both failures. The girlfriends he has, he holds in sheer contempt. And not just because they are tedious, tiresome little fools - which they almost certainly are by the way - but because how can they be worth having if they want someone as worthless as him?"

"_I'm not fucking listening!"_

"Oh, but you do not need to listen, you have already told yourself the tale over and over again. You know it off by its blackened little heart. You want Ginevra, you are _obsessed_ with Ginevra, because you know that she wants Harry Potter. It is not even that you want her in order to somehow 'take her off Potter'. You know perfectly well that Harry does not care for her or want her or even notice her: you picked her because her own obsession with Harry Potter made it a certainty – above and beyond even the many disastrous family differences between you – that she would never want you. You set your heart upon the one girl whom you _knew_ you could never get: Ginevra Weasley. You were building your own self-fulfilling prophecy, Draco – aiming after someone who would _never _love you in order to prove to yourself beyond any possible doubt that what you secretly suspected was actually true: '_I'm not worth loving'._"

"_That's not true!"_

"Draco Malfoy, a boy so self-punishing that he picked the one girl he was quite certain would never want him."

Voldemort approached Malfoy.

"Do you think I could prise open your soul and break it now, Draco? I think I might, you know. Because, Ginevra – the 'perfect' Ginevra of your imaginings – was perfect precisely because you could never have her, precisely because she would never want you. Perfect because she is someone who will never taint herself with the 'sin' of loving you – because anyone who wants you, well, they _must _have something wrong with them, mustn't they?"

Voldemort slightly stooped from his great height to peer into Malfoy's face. He looked almost innocently curious.

"Are you splintering, Draco? Can I hear tiny cracks crazing across the surface of your soul? Because the painful truth is, Draco, that even if by some freak sport of chance you did get her, you would not want her. She would become worthless to you in the very act of giving herself."

Voldemort was breathing his sour, rank breath upon Malfoy's face now, reaching out with his long fingers to cradle Malfoy's head. And all Malfoy could do was squeeze his eyes shut in his wet face – he'd run out of all his smart words, because Voldemort had said all there really was to say.

"You never 'loved' Ginevra Weasley, Draco – you simply hated yourself. That unfortunate scar on your chest? That is the least of it. Emotionally you are just one mass of scar tissue."

Voldemort brushed Malfoy's temples with the very tips of his fingers and –

"You think you're so smart?" Harry's panicked, hoarse shout leapt out of him. "You think that you know all about everyone? You're immature and stupid! You didn't reckon on the skin-magic with my mum, you forgot about the Phoenix tears, you didn't even cotton-on to the cats and the owls just tonight! You're just a spiteful, stupid brat who can just quote the dictionary! Well you stopped developing the moment you split your soul off into your first Horcrux. Inside, you never got any further than 16 years old. You're just 16 years old and _scared!"_

Harry had no idea what he was going to do – but he had the horrible feeling now that they weren't going to get out of this. At the back of his mind he'd held an unacknowledged hope that help was coming and would get here if he could just slow it all down for long enough. But who was help coming from?

Help wasn't coming.

Voldemort stepped toward him and Harry instinctively back-peddled as much as the Death Eater holding him would allow.

Voldemort's voice was like a flat sheet of steel.

"Give Harry his wand. He is a hero. He can die with a wand in his hand."

Harry's wand came whizzing through the air and he caught it, gripping so tightly that his knuckles were white.

It trembled slightly in his too tense grip.

Was this it?

Was this how it all ended?

Defeated after all?

"Down here by yourself. Abandoned." If Voldemort had eyebrows they would have been raised. "You say Scrimgeour is coming to get us, but where is he?"

Harry didn't have a hope of killing Voldemort – never mind the Horcruxes. This was death and total failure that was facing him. He would die having failed to avenge his parents or Sirius or Professor Dumbledore or Cedric or _anyone._ He had utterly failed to stop that weapon. He had utterly failed to save Malfoy or Hermione or Ginny.

Same mess as he'd made when he'd gotten Sirius killed, really.

"Everyone has let you down, Harry."

Remus had been right. There had been no point in him coming: all he could do was die.

But what if he could do it? There was the prophecy. What if he could do - _something?_

And then Luna's voice again … _"I know you have it somewhere within you to defeat him, Harry … so you had to live …"_

And then -

"… _Potter must promise to save Master Draco! Promise!"_

He'd promised.

Voldemort stopped for a second, his voice grew quick and low.

"I admire courage, Harry – and I am surrounded by so very little of it. I have to kill Draco – I really have no choice. But you? Bow, Harry. Bow to me now and I might not kill you after all. I could kill anyone for a Horcrux – I have already killed that Death Eater tonight. I admire courage, and you are so very brave."

Harry looked up at Voldemort, shocked. Did he actually mean it?

"… _so you had to live …"_

That was it then: he was decided really.

"Go to hell – if there's any part of you that's not already there."

xxxxxx

"Dumbledore isn't coming for you either - defeated by me in the end, slaughtered by Severus."

Away to one side, Snape started.

"Poor Dumbledore," Voldemort's voice was an offensive, mocking croon, "I expect it was a mercy when Severus killed him."

Snape held himself utterly rigid at that.

"The potion I used to guard the locket - it causes such despair. Such soul-wracking despair. Terrible, devastating regrets and self-hatreds for all the mistakes one has made."

"Well you'd better not drink any then!"

Voldemort laughed as Harry's voice shook.

They were standing on the floor of the Chamber, flanked on either side by ranks of Death Eaters. At the far end, Malfoy was still roped to the stake, reduced to screaming for help from whatever source might hear him. Hermione, Ginny, Narcissa and Bellatrix were each firmly grasped and held off to one side. Bellatrix was snarling, Hermione and Narcissa looked hollow-eyed with fright, and Ginny was sniffling and wiping at her eyes with her free hand.

She had been crying so hard that the whites of her eyes were smudged with brown now. The Ravenclaw tiara twisted up out of her hair like clawing talons. A slight smear of blood oozed at her temple where the scratching wire had worn away at her.

Before the watching group, standing thirty foot apart from each other, Harry and Voldemort looked like two cricketers standing at opposite ends of a crease.

Harry had no idea what he could do to rescue the situation. His life expectancy was approximately ten seconds after this hex-fight started. He couldn't even save Malfoy from his fate by killing him before Voldemort could cast his soul to wander the wastes. Things were so bad that Harry had considered even that as some last success: killing Draco - because there really were fates worse than death. But he couldn't even manage that one – Malfoy was too far away. And Reductoing the Horcruxes or that weapon? A joke!

"I do wonder what dear old Albus saw when he drank the potion. What terrible mistakes did he relive?"

"The Professor never did anything wrong!"

"Oh, but he did, Harry. He failed to stop me. He failed to save your parents. He made mistakes in trusting people when he shouldn't, and in failing to inform others when he should."

Harry tried to shut the words out precisely because he'd thought similar himself. _And _the Professor had refused to use the time-turner to save Ron and Luna, _and_ he had refused to go back to Godric's Hollow that night, _and _-

"He did the best he could with what he had!"

"Ahh – but 'the best' isn't good enough, is it Harry?"

"Well sometimes it has to be!"

"He failed to be ruthless in dealing with Bellatrix and company, so they tortured those stultifyingly heroic Longbottoms into insanity -"

Bellatrix flinched.

"_Shut up, you wordy bastard!"_ ranted Malfoy.

Voldemort called over his shoulder.

"Wait your turn to be killed, Draco – no need to hurry it along."

"So what you mean is, he failed to be you?" bit out Harry. "That's not what I call failure! Be in no doubt: you are a murderer. A scared little cowardly -"

"A coward?" Voldemort hissed. "I who have braved the mouths of Hell itself to attain my immortality? You think I am afraid of death?"

Harry gawped about him: at Malfoy tied to a stake and all the tubes and bowls and knives and all the signs of Voldemort's grand plan for immortality, "Well, that would be a big, fat _yes!"_

Behind them, Malfoy laughed hysterically, before opening his mouth to scream again for: _"HELP!"_

Voldemort's hiss resonated like the sound of the serpent he half-was, "What would you see if you drank it, Harry? What would you see if you drank the potion? Would you see the death of – ahh, now let me recollect – the death of … _Sirius Black?"_

Harry felt a horrible plummeting sensation, but he should have known that once war had been declared that Voldemort would go for the most vicious weapon within reach.

"Pathetic Black, who killed your parents. He couldn't take responsibility for being their Secret Keeper – that was the truth of it – so he handed them over to that wretch, Wormtail, who betrayed his childhood friends."

Over to one side, a small cloaked figure twitched miserably.

"Sirius Black was as responsible for their deaths as if he had killed them himself!"

"That's not true! You killed them!"

"He was responsible and he knew it. Why did he offer no defense? He could have insisted upon being fed Veritaserum to verify his tale, insisted upon a Leglimens checking him for lies, he could have shown his memory of events in a pensieve. He offered no defense because he wanted to suffer! He could have escaped Azkaban far sooner than he did, his Animagus ability was always there, but he stayed because he knew he had to pay!"

"He didn't have to pay! He did the best he could – it just turned out wrong!"

"I don't even need to wonder what Black would have seen having drunk the potion: he would have seen his betrayal of your parents. Indeed, he did not even need the potion to relive it: he was reliving it every single minute of every single day."

"Shut up!"

"Sirius Black, lunging into battle, almost determined to be dead."

"He made mistakes – but he wasn't guilty!"

"Yes, but it's so terribly difficult for people to forgive themselves sometimes, isn't it?"

"_He wasn't guilty!"_

"But of course he was, Harry. Wasn't that why you killed him?"

Harry gave a gasping jolt and felt the start of some avalanche within him.

"You went to the Ministry when you could have gone to so many other places. At the back of your mind – even at the back of _your_ mind, which has an awful lot of back and very little front – you must have known at some level that you were racing into a hideous error. You were even advised against it, yet you ignored all advice. Did you calculate at some level that it would force people to come?"

The avalanched began to flood down the hill in a rumbling, jumbling jolt of rocks and dirt.

"Did you secretly calculate that if Sirius Black were not there, then if you were, he would have to come into danger?"

It was all nonsense – what Voldemort said, it was all rubbish - but at its core … Harry knew he had killed Sirius Black.

The avalanche became a great, rumbling shift.

"Amazing how the people who save you, die - isn't it, Harry? You are a curse. A blight upon all those who know you. Your parents; Black; that youth in the graveyard upon my return – only there because you were so determinedly noble and valiant and fair: if you had just taken the trophy as you ought, he wouldn't have had to be there at all. Dumbledore died for you. And no doubt others have too."

Harry's mouth was open, but no words would come out.

He just stood there with his wand hand now slowly drooping.

As Remus had said, there came a time to know when to give up the fight – unfortunately, this time it was too late.

"No shared wand-cores to confuse the issue this time, Harry …"

All the terrible mistakes Harry had made.

"You're Of Age - no mother's blood to save you now, Harry Potter …"

"_FUCKING HELP!"_ screamed Draco Malfoy.

"Mothers: you lost yours, Draco will lose his …"

Malfoy choked on his scream at that.

Harry felt some last spark within him …

"Mothers? Ours made sacrifices for us – yours couldn't even be bothered to live for you. She'd rather die and leave you in an orphanage – she loved you so much."

Voldemort killed him – the Avada Kedavra fired straight to Harry's head.

Well – at least _tried_ to kill him. Because what happened next, no-one was ever entirely sure about. Some said there was still some lingering magic wrought by his mother's love, some said it must have been a secret protective spell cast by Dumbledore, some said … it was Voldemort himself who did the damage. All unknowing, all unwitting, never meaning to – but poetic justice nonetheless. That it was something to do with the time when he'd taken Harry Potter's blood as his own during his graveyard resurrection. That Voldemort – Tom Riddle really, there never had been any 'Voldemort' – had, in his over-confident, immature, rash, 16-forever way, forged an unknown physical link between he and the boy whom he had marked as his victim.

So that when he hit Harry Potter with the Killing Curse for the second time in his life, it recoiled upon him as it had the first.

Rebounding on him like a bullet ricocheting back upon the shooter.

Voldemort and Harry Potter both screamed in the same instant, Harry clutching his head as a white pain razored through it. He fell to the ground as if he'd been clubbed. He could only vaguely hear the screaming and panicked cries which he knew were all about him; with the terrible blinding pain splitting his scull he couldn't truly know what was going on.

He could hear Malfoy yelling from the far end of the Chamber and there was a great grinding of stone from that direction then an enourmous wave of terrified screams going up, all mixed up with the high-pitched cries of girls and women: Hermione, Ginny, Bellatrix and Narcissa.

Blinded and almost too agonised to think, Harry could only imagine it was as though a lion had pounced into a herd of wildebeest or a great snake had slithered into a rabbit warren: panic everywhere.

One moment the Dark Lord was leading them, and now -?

Voldemort was screaming, writhing on the floor: both he and Harry lashed to their joint fate … both dying from the same Avada Kedavra, yet both not dying. They spell had split in two, with Voldemort and Harry now each half-dead, each half-alive. But while they were both in that state, neither could live while the other survived. One would have to die so the other could thrive.

Harry's head felt like it was splitting open, as though some immense canker that shouldn't ever have been there was being squeezed out – but through too narrow a gap.

"_Kill Harry Potter!"_

That was Greyback – used to command, less lost than others now that they were suddenly rendered leaderless.

Flat on his back and through blurred vision, Harry thought he could see the roof of the Chamber cracking, shards of stone flying about, slicing into people, cutting them down as they screamed.

Parts of the roof was starting to cave in. Away at the back, where the huge double doors were, the stone shattered inward and huge chunks were flung the length of the Chamber like rough-hewn canon-balls.

Looked like Scrimgeour had used the Potion Bombs after all.

The force inside Harry's head felt enormous now, and – screaming – he had both hands his scull, clamping to it, pressing as though to stop it from cracking open.

Even if Harry somehow survived this joint trial with Voldemort and Voldemort somehow expired, he knew was going to die now, trapped in the disintegrating Chamber: Scrimgeour had made his choices.

At the cry of 'Kill Harry Potter' a snarl of werewolves were upon him and he was almost grateful – because if they killed him then the terrible pain would stop. But then there was a squeaking and a panicked panting: Wormtail was desperately beating them off with his silver hand.

Wormtail had finally made his choice too, but Harry could have told him: don't bother, we're all going to die anyway.

The inside of Harry's scull felt like a vast white waste now.

Death was imminent - it was all too late.

Greyback's werewolves, sensing they could still finish this, still garner something for themselves, reared back for a moment, then surged again in a wave of reeking aggression and annihilated Wormtail with the ferocity of their attack.

Greyback's horrid, slavering face loomed over the dazed and partly blinded Harry: a killer of children goggling over his helpless prey.

And then there was a great coloured swirl of action.

The force in Harry's head popped with almost a detonating sound, the pain stopped, but suddenly he was up and floating in the air with the Chamber about him in a Kaleidoscopic whirl.

Below him, a figure dressed in red and yellow checked pyjamas ripped a stick up over its shoulder and slashed it in a wild arc.

Blood spurted and werewolves howled and raced off.

Greyback was yanked up by someone just as strong as he was: Bill Weasley. "You should have killed me the first time, either that or not bitten me at all."

Greyback was sent flying through the air from a short punch straight to the sternum: Bill was a Cursebreaker and knew how to fight, and he had all of Greyback's strength – given to him when Greyback had bitten him.

Greyback turned in mid-air – the agility of a wolf – and plunged straight at Remus Lupin.

Who guarded over the figure of … Harry Potter, looking empty and ashen-white on the floor!

Harry tried to mill around and shout wildly, but he couldn't, he was a totally disembodied … _nothing!_

The stick flashed in the red and yellow pyjama'd person's hand.

"_Professor!"_

Neville Longbottom tossed the shining stick to Remus who caught it one-handed, swiveled, dropped to one knee and held the Sword of Gryffindor out like a pike-staff with Greyback landing on it chest-first, impaling with an almost juicy-sounding slam, shuddering down it, halt within two-feet of the Harry Potter who was lying on the floor. And that was the thing about the sword: it may have been Gryffindor's, it may have had rubies set into the hilt, but it was made of … silver. The stone of Gryffindor and the steel of Slytherin, combined into one symbol when they had still been friends.

And silver killed werewolves.

Harry had thought it was too late? But only 'never' was too late.

The ceiling falling in? It had been parts of the roof blasting apart as people shot their way through it, having hurtled down to the Chamber via the pipes from the castle plumbing system.

The great doors blasting open? It was a small detachment of Aurors who had chosen to risk it: among them was Tonks, a scion of that strange House of Black.

And Scrimgeour leading from the front.

An Auror before he was ever a politician.

It was the advent of a small group of people who had turned around and come back for Harry Potter.

And at least Greyback was now dead but it was one down, but about 99 to go!

Above, unseen by anyone, Harry willed himself to scream but nothing would come out – there was just no 'there', there!

There was screaming panic all about and the Death Eaters heaved in great, random, pressing swathes: some trying to attack, others trying to escape.

Bill, Neville and Remus were knocked sideways like skittles by such an unfocused surge.

The Sword of Gryffindor was jolted out of Greyback's dead body in the shifting melee and randomly sent skittering across the floor.

Harry tried twisting in the air – but there was nothing to twist, it wasn't even like he was invisible – he just wasn't _there!_

If it was a battle of wills for sole possession of whatever shared life still remained between he and Voldemort, it looked like Harry was loosing.

Looking down at himself, Harry saw his pallid body lying sprawled amidst the heaving morass of people and thought that whatever was left of him might very well be trampled to death.

In his mind he gave a blurt of inappropriate laughter: _at least he had a great view though._

He saw Bill absorb the impact of the great shunting herd in a forward roll that set him landing back on his feet but fifteen yards away. Bill turned as he righted and shot a blistering Protego into the seething ranks which now separated he, Neville and Remus from Harry's body, giving Neville and Remus the chance to steady.

Bill was using his wand? Even with the _Retardius_?

There was a high, panicked shout carrying clear across all the melee. _"Over there! Over there!"_

Someone was trying to direct something: it was Theodore Nott with 'Crabbe' and 'Goyle', directing them to smash at Death Eaters with their great clubs.

On a patch of floor distant from where Harry saw Harry lying, was a knotted thicket of black-robed Death Eaters, clustered like a blight about some dark, but still-beating heart.

They were clustered about the fallen Voldemort.

Away to one side there were screams and hisses. Romilda '_I've done my bit, Potter!'_ Vane, waded through the screaming, milling throng to someone she recognised: the captive and struggling Hermione Granger. Standing with Hermione, Bellatrix and Narcissa now turned upon their own captors and – wandless – fought wildly, all raking nails and biting teeth. Romilda got off a few smashing spells and then snatched up a chunk of fallen rock and clubbed the Death Eater captors senseless with it via repeated, savage blows to the head.

Ginny, shouting and crying, twisted and shoved, breaking free of her now-panicked captor and, flailing, tugged wildly at the tiara, running blindly about, careening off a pillar and stumbling against the wall.

A Death Eater grabbed Romilda who snarled, wrenched away – and smashed her chunk of rock straight into his face.

She then snatched his wand and snapped it underfoot with a stamp of her commandeered Quidditch boot.

Bellatrix Black stared, seemingly dazed and almost captivated, at the dark-haired, dark-eyed, pointed-faced girl: staring at someone who in looks and nature could very well have been her younger self …

Her younger self before it had all gone horribly wrong.

Bellatrix tore her gaze away and hissed in the direction of the still-fallen Voldemort and then raced – but toward the altar which held the live Horcruxes.

Hermione ran too and disembodied-Harry urged her on with a sharp spike of hope. He thought she would race toward protection from Bill, but instead she raced away up the Chamber, hurtling toward the projecting block of stone which activated the weapon.

Harry had forgotten about the weapon.

Disembodied-Harry felt a soundless scream detonate in his head as Hermione got hit in the chest point-blanc by a jet of green light, sending her flying backward.

Killing Spell?

And then she got up again, finding her wand hidden in her robes where Malfoy had 'slipped her some wood', and smashing the Death Eater out of the way and carrying on running – but more slowly now and more ungainly, half-crouching, one hand holding to her chest as though a great fist had hit her there.

Disembodied-Harry started to struggle. Dying might not be so very hard, but there were horribly out-numbered people down there who might appreciate a little bit of help.

Besides, if he didn't try and live, then what were the efforts of his attempted rescuers for?

In the distance, Malfoy's mother turned and ran toward her son.

But Malfoy's _Crucio_ struggles had loosened the ropes by just that fraction he needed and beneath them he'd managed to reach the R.A.B. knife: a knife which could unlock any lock … _undo any knot_. He ripped the blade against just one of the ropes and they all fell away, collapsing to the floor in a heavy heap of spent coils.

A Death Eater was skittering uncertainly nearby – one of the ones who had been going to cut Malfoy open and bleed him almost to the point of death – he shifted for the black, glass blade, but Malfoy got him first.

Flinging his arm out in a hard, vicious arc he slammed the R.A.B. knife sideways straight into the centre of other's chest, straight through the centre of the rib-cage. The other stood there blankly for a second, expression one of sheer affront. Then he abruptly fell to his knees, keeling over and dying with a look of injured surprise as though it wasn't fitting that he should die like that – suddenly, without any warning or ceremony, in no way special.

Malfoy's eyes glittered with rage.

And spying Malfoy up at that end of the Chamber, the now-struggling disembodied-Harry saw what the earlier explosion of terrified hysteria and that scraping of stone had been all about.

He had thought it was something to with the advent of the Aurors and the arrival of his small band of would-be rescuers. He had never imagined that Bertie the Zombie Basilisk had finally decided to make his belated entry, dropping out of Slytherin's stone mouth.

Well, Professor Dumbledore had once said that any school-child who asked for help within Hogwarts would receive it. Harry grimly supposed that Malfoy effing and jeffing his lungs out down in the Chamber sort of counted as that.

Malfoy screamed to his mother that he was okay, and she turned on her heel and then both Black sisters were racing for the Horcruxes.

The dead Death Eater on the dais knocked the large bronze bowl as he slumped and it hit the stone floor side-ways on, landing with a huge clang and rolling about randomly like a great coin.

Malfoy now had the bloodied blade in his hand and the struggling, disembodied-Harry wondered: how many fractures did Malfoy's soul have now? At least two. It wasn't fair though to call them fractures. It was self defense both times. More or less. But Malfoy had a fractured soul now – even though he wasn't really that guilty. Not guilty any more than Sirius had been guilty. Not guilty any more than Professor Dumbledore had been guilty. Not guilty any more than … he, Harry, had been guilty when he'd done the best he could with what he'd had and gone to the Department of Mysteries utterly and honestly intending to save Sirius …

Then he was yanked back into his body by the resounding force of a foot choking down on his windpipe.

Amidst the chaos, Lucius Malfoy was taking his chance.

If he killed Harry and Voldemort died: fine, he would lead the Death Eaters. If he killed Harry and Voldemort lived, still fine: he would be reinstated among the Death Eaters. His swan-soled shoe pressed down on Harry's windpipe, setting to crush the larynx as Harry lay helpless.

He bent over: "Here is my advice to you, Potter: die."

"Well here's my advice to you, Malfoy: blow me."

Lucius was swiveled about by the collar and ferociously head-butted by Ron Weasley.

Ron had his leg in what looked like a make-shift splint, was trailing bits of inappropriately placed water-weed and stank of lake-mud. He didn't seem to have his wand but instead was clutching what looked horribly like – and indeed was – a ripped off human forearm.

It was slicked with lake-water and bore the imprint of the Dark Mark.

He clouted Lucius Malfoy with it as though it were a Beater's bat and sent him spinning. He called down to Harry wildly.

"Chamber of Secrets? Death Eaters? Human sacrifice? Couldn't miss it, could I?" Then he looked more carefully down into the white face of the now almost dead Harry and screamed. "_Hold on, Harry!"_

Even though Harry tried to stay in his body now - he wanted to live, he didn't _deserve _to die! – he couldn't find the purchase and he floated further up out of himself with every passing second.

Voldemort was forcing him out.

Somehow, someway they were struggling over the few shreds of life left – but Harry didn't even know how he was supposed to fight for it!

Away to one side he was aware of Snape racing to the altar - overtaking both Narcissa and Bellatrix.

Harry could see Hermione, further up the Chamber, stumbling along the side of the wall now, still holding her chest; she shrieked as Nagini rounded a column, rearing and poised to bite.

He nearly lost what grip he had on his own body as he felt a great jolt of horrified fright - and then Draco Malfoy, having scrabbled for his wand, fired an _Incendio_ from 100 yards out and combusted the serpent into a screaming green column, blazing away with red and yellow flames.

Harry clawed to get back into his body now, grunting with effort, he had to get back in this fight. But he felt as though his feet were being tugged up vertically away!

The Basilisk reared about wildly and battling people were shielding their eyes whilst desperately trying to fight. But every so often someone would freeze into a poised shape, like a deadly game of 'Statues' as the Basilisk's random glance caught them.

As wands went awry in hand-to-hand fights, hexes smashed off at odd angles and punched into the walls and ceiling. One wild spell caught the rearing, panicked Basilisk in the jaw, and some of its poisonous fangs shattered and flew about, landing on the floor like scattered scimitars, being kicked hither and thither by trampling feet.

Harry desperately tried to resist being forced any further down the path to death.

He wasn't afraid of death now, he'd been ready to go before, but now he didn't want to because - it wasn't bloody-well _fair!_ Voldemort had taken his unfair share of God-knows how many other people's lives: he wasn't having Harry's!

Up at the far end by stone block, Hermione gashed at the palm of her hand with an unpracticed _Sectumsempra_. She smashed the flat of her slashed hand into the shaped indentation with an almost exultant rictus as though she expected something utterly phenomenal to occur –

- and then looked hysterically disbelieving when nothing happened.

Bill, Remus and Neville had re-grouped and were trying to get to Harry-on-the-ground and Ron; Bill pulling slick, practiced moves, able to effectively operate against much larger forces.

There was shocked disbelief on Hermione's face as she stood dumbly, staring at her bloodied hand and then down again at the red mess in the hand-print.

Whatever her plan was, it hadn't worked.

Harry gruntingly held on to life, sheer stubborn refusal to die now.

Snape hurtled to the altar and the three Death Eaters guarding it shifted in panic. Snape was Voldemort's 'most trusted' – but what was he going to do?

Snape swept the three Death Eaters aside with a single, swingeing spell.

Bellatrix and Narcissa followed immediately upon him, running so hard they actually smashed into the altar.

Ron was crouching – as much as his broken leg allowed – over the physically fallen Harry. He'd gotten the great, rolling bowl and was holding it up before him like a parabolic shield, roaring as he ricocheted and refracted spell after spell which came at them, catching them all with his goalie's lightning-fast reflexes and honed anticipation: sending them shooting back into the thick mass of struggling bodies before they could hit Harry.

Ron, the Quidditch Keeper – the last line of defense.

At the altar, Snape shot point-blanc at the locket Horcrux and was sent smashing backwards by the flash of recoil, with the locket still unharmed.

Krum and a small number of Durmstrang heavies lurched out of the heaving morass, with Krum trying to go for the now isolated Hermione, but they all had to duck, shielding their eyes, as the frightened and panicked Basilisk reared over them and then gathered itself and rushed up the Chamber toward the stranded Hermione, seeking to escape through the shattered doors.

His wand now in his hand, Malfoy dropped from the dais – all long limbs in his beautifully cut black business suit – and raced up the Chamber after it.

Bellatrix Black seized the fallen Snape's wand and powered a spell wildly at the milling mass of fighting bodies.

She and her sister had to duck as, in response, items flew toward them and bounced off the sides of the stone altar like thrown knives.

Running along the wall, Malfoy drew level with the altar, slowed for a fraction as if to stop but not really seeing what they were about, it was all a blur - and then drove on, redoubling his efforts: because at the top of the Chamber, Hermione Granger was now screaming as the terrified Basilisk sped towards her.

Malfoy was sprinting now, running on the balls of his feet, hurtling forward, heels not touching the ground.

Narcissa and Bellatrix swept up two of the scattered 'knives' which had clattered to the floor: Basilisk fangs.

Fifty yards up from them, Malfoy didn't even have the breath to scream a spell as he ploughed into Hermione and knocked her off her feet, crunching the pair of them into the raised block in an ungainly tangle of limbs.

Back down the Chamber, Malfoy's mother and auntie each beheld the other for a second and nodded, the House of Black in accord, knowing what they had to do.

They each plunged a fang into a Horcrux.

Away at the top of the Chamber, Hermione screamed as Malfoy swirled, arm over his face, ready to meet the rushing Basilisk.

There was a sharp high sweet scent.

And the Basilisk caught him a glance straight in the eye.

And nothing happened.

Because as Malfoy had crashed into her and turned, Hermione hadn't been screaming at the Basilisk right then, she had been screaming at Malfoy's face – at the horrible un-naturalness of it: because unbeknown to him, Malfoy's eyes had turned from gleaming, glittering and shining to … mirrors.

Actual mirrors.

With the white-blondness of his hair, the paleness of his skin, the glassiness of his nails and now the twin, inset, silver, arced mirrors of his eyes, he looked perfectly, horrifyingly, inhuman.

A boy born of dragons-blood indeed.

The Basilisk stared at Malfoy and Malfoy stared back – some instinctive connection. Too ablaze with determination to even wonder at why he wasn't dead, he jabbed a finger at five on-rushing Death Eaters and yelled: _"Get them!"_

The great serpent swung about and annihilated them with a sweep of it's deadly gaze.

Backing off from Malfoy, gibbering with fright at the almost repellant, almost beautiful, strangeness of him, Hermione tripped and fell and the shot which Lucius Malfoy aimed at her from half-way down the Chamber missed and blasted his son instead – sending him spinning, unconscious back half-way toward the altar.

At the altar, two women gasped and went rigid as the Founder objects released their defensive magic: the locket surged its power through Narcissa and the cup through Bellatrix.

The locket – of the element water - rendered Narcissa an effigy made from crystal-clear liquid, and the cup rendered Bellatrix into a figure of earth.

Gasping, Snape struggled to his feet, horrified.

But they were statues of two women frozen in their completed actions: the destruction of the last of Voldemort's Horcruxes. And as Narcissa's son had said: now Voldemort was just one more wizard with a wand.

Snape turned and shot the length of the Chamber.

At the far end and being blasted at by Lucius Malfoy – if Hermione Granger wanted to set off that weapon off, then he certainly _didn't_ –Hermione hid behind the block and screamed for help as the Basilisk still lurched about.

"Harry!"

But Harry couldn't come, and neither could Ron.

Far at the other end of the Chamber, Snape launched through the air, flying full-length over an battling knot of Aurors led by Scrimgeour, all trying to reach Voldemort.

"_Harry!"_

Because Harry was being forced out of his own body and Ron was pinned down with a broken leg.

And the ex-Potions Master, the true Head of Slytherin House, transfigured his wand into a blade in mid-flight and landed, plunging it straight into Voldemort.

There was a terrible, wet, slicing sound as the bladed wand snicked in eight inches deep, then a horrid twisting as Snape yelled and wrenched the blade through a single right-angle, snapping Voldemort's chest apart and tearing through the black heart within.

"_HARRY!"_

The heart gave with a strange splitting sound, like the fibers of a piece of ancient, gnarled, wet, wood being forcibly prised apart before finally snapping.

And Harry shot back into his body.

Voldemort was dead.

And now all Harry had to do was set off at a run up the Chamber, sort out a Basilisk and stop about eighty Death Eaters.

Ron lurched, grunting, still deflecting spells to give Harry cover as he went.

Lucius Malfoy saw Harry coming and half-turned to get him, but Harry blasted him off his feet before he could shoot.

He hurtled up the Chamber toward Hermione who was now at the weapon block, ringing her hands and gibbering, her slashed-open hand smearing blood all over the uncut one.

"_I'm right._ _I KNOW I'M RIGHT!"_

"Right about -?"

As spell-fire and screaming were all about with the Basilisk hissing overhead, Hermione hysterically indicated the upturned stone bowl incised with the hand-print, _"SET IT OFF!"_

Above them in all the screaming, the Basilisk surged from the Chamber through the shattered doorway.

Set it -? What? The weapon? But he wasn't even an Heir! And set off a weapon to kill all the Muggleborn? He was supposed to be responsible for setting it off?

Hermione was still screaming at him in even though Harry could not hear her words.

… it all came down to how much he trusted Hermione in the end. Hermione: deceptive but honourable, manipulative but upstanding, caring but self-righteous, clever but stupid, scared but brave, and … his friend.

Harry slashed his hand open and slammed it down into the carved relief.

And …

… wondered if maybe he had made a mistake after all. Because who had ever thought that Hell was made of white, whirling, roaring light?

The force of the initial blast shot him backwards and he landed in a stunned, bone-jarred heap, wand dashed from his grasp. Hermione, likewise, was sent flying back toward the still unconscious Malfoy. Away down the Chamber the morass of battling figures carried on fighting for a second, unaware, until some turned and screamed and then they all did - as a blazing white disk of light fifty-foot high began to rotate like a huge engine of fate down at Harry's end of the Chamber.

It seemed okay for the first few seconds, as though nothing was really going to happen, but with a gritting, grinding sound the disk began to spin faster and pick up speed, and a terrible howling grew ever louder from it – the shrieking wastes of some alien space – and it grew into a great, roaring cold sun.

It howled and turned ever faster and a wind began to generate – air sucking in toward it. It was slight at first, almost a breeze, then stiffer, then a wind that tugged your clothes toward it.

And then a howling, roaring gale that started to tug _people_.

Along the Chamber, figures began to struggle against it, bending against the now raging storm, eyes closed against the rushing wind, arms outstretched and fingers clutching for any hand-hold.

And then their feet began to slip from under them and they flew through the air and the first of them – some unrecognised Death Eater - span wildly, end over end, backward into the disk and then … disappeared.

Harry snapped to attention as another wildly spinning Death Eater screamed past – a great, black crow in his whirling robes – and was sucked down through the door of light.

Death Eaters.

Since when were Death Eaters Muggleborn?

Harry's gazed flashed about wildly and caught sight of Hermione – her robes whipping in the wind, her hand protectively shielding her face, eyes closed against the stinging motes carried by the howling gale, but she seemed to have no difficulty in retaining her position sitting on the floor facing the force of the great sucking maelstrom.

The weapon annihilated all those 'unworthy to be wizard', but that was a far cry from how you were born – that was a definition of who you chose to become.

It was a weapon fired by a moral imperative, not a blood-line one.

Harry felt a flare of hope –

- and Lucius Malfoy grabbed onto Hermione's ankle as the wind ripped him past her. She screamed as the extra weight hit her. Screaming again she twisted as she was dragged along by the relentless wind, face down now, fingers scrabbling for a grip on the flagstones as the freight of Lucius Malfoy's sins hauled her to hell.

The Sword of Gryffindor clattered along and it distracted her.

She slid as her grip came loose and Harry screamed as he thought she'd go flying past him, but flailing away she got a solid hand-hold on one of the snakes carved into a pillar and – screaming – held on as she was pulled horizontal in mid-air with Lucius Malfoy – eyes blazing and teeth bared – determinedly holding onto her.

But it wasn't just evil Death Eaters the storm was sucking in now – Harry yelled as he saw a shocked-looking Auror fly past - because Death Eaters weren't the only ones there who had killed people. And away up the Chamber, lying dazed on the floor, Draco Malfoy's semi-conscious form – his soul fractured twice - began to be slowly caught up by the wind, readying to carry him off to hell.

Harry roared and flung himself up the Chamber toward both Malfoy and Hermione, but even if the mighty storm did not want him itself, it was like trying to crawl up a wind-tunnel which was going full blast.

He felt a shoe rip off his foot by the tug of the cyclone.

He clawed along, grimacing, his hair and clothes being pulled backwards in the streaming wind.

He was going to make it up that Chamber – sure – but he knew it would all be too late when he got there.

Hermione could not hold on much longer and Malfoy would be swept away before he could reach him.

Malfoy's body jolted as the wind got a proper grip and Harry screamed and out thrust an arm even though the now-sliding Malfoy was about twenty yards away.

Then a long, dark figure slid along the floor, letting the wind tug with increasing rapidity, snatching up the Sword of Gryffindor on the way and then grabbing Malfoy's slumped, outstretched arm by the wrist.

Severus Snape twisted as he slid and, muttering a ferocious spell, drove the Sword of Gryffindor into the stone floor, embedding it there and holding on: an anchor in the storm even as the wind yanked at he and Malfoy.

As Malfoy was yanked fully into the air just as Snape grabbed him, his eyes flew wide and his hand convulsively gripped his wand now – awake. Just for a second, Harry thought that Malfoy's eyes seemed to shimmer silver before settling into their accustomed grey.

Figures flew past.

Many were Death Eaters, but some were not.

Harry yelled as he half-glimpsed a familiar figure whipping by and instinctively shot out a hand.

Harry Potter held the Minister of Magic even as the wind gripped Scrimgeour and slowly but remorselessly, dragged them both across the floor.

"Let go, Harry!"

"No!"

"_Let go!"_

Harry redoubled his grip on Scrimgeour's wrist – grabbing him with both hands so even if Scrimgeour let go of him, he wouldn't let go of Scrimgeour. Rearing back, he arched into the effort even as they were both pulled across the stone floor toward the mouth of hell.

"_HARRY!"_

Harry jolted a shocked look at the intent Minister.

"When I said that I would do an awful thing to attain a worthwhile end: _I meant it!"_

Scrimgeour took his own wand and, teeth bared, slashed himself across the forearm with the Sectumsempra, severing himself from Harry's grip to fly, alone, into the howling light.

Harry screamed as the Minister went.

Above him, Malfoy twisted to see what had happened, his wand now firmly in his hand.

Above Malfoy, Hermione was being yanked off her hand-hold by the wind raging at Lucius Malfoy.

People were being pulled in left and right: the weapon was a ferocious engine but one which made no distinction along the spectrum between grey or black. There were no degrees of sinning: it was all or not at all. If evil was latched to innocence, then innocence would be hauled in too.

Hermione's grip snapped and she and Lucius Malfoy careened straight to hell.

Snape yelled as they went past but could do nothing: one hand gripping the sword and the other gripping Malfoy.

Harry could do nothing even as the screaming Hermione hurtled in mid-air, with Lucius Malfoy gripped to her ankle.

Only Draco Malfoy could do something.

Only Draco Malfoy had his wand.

He shot his father off Hermione Granger with a deadly slice of Sectumsempra, severing the man's hand at the wrist.

The great arterial spray spattered Draco Malfoy across the face.

Almost astonished, Lucius Malfoy stared back at his son as he flashed into hell, with Hermione abruptly dropping to the floor like a discarded stone.

She groaned as she cracked into the flagstones.

"_STOP IT! – STOP IT! – I'M TELLING YOU TO STOP IT!"_

A small, determined figure ground its way down the length of the Chamber, the wind howling about it, a thicket of black thorns growing from its head, fingers clawing out toward the light, it's face a mask of wrath.

The figure roared at the engine as though it could see some other force within it:

"_I SAID, STOP IT!"_

It was Ginny Weasley, but Ginny Weasley as Harry nor anyone else had ever seen her before.

It was always her way: first she lied and then she cried and then she got angry.

That night she had lied a lot, and she had cried a lot, and now she was ferocious.

She seemed a shimmering-hot force of sheer will. A seventh child with all her powers. And her eyes – Harry jolted - her eyes had gone completely black in the way that Harry thought Malfoy's eyes had seemed to shine silver before.

As black as the tiara that bit into her head.

If Malfoy's eyes had been like mirrors, then his gaze gave you back only what you gave him.

Ginny Weasley's matt-black gaze took all the light there was to give and gave nothing back at all.

"_I SAID STOP!"_

She was almost smoking with sheer, bent, determination now.

She roared out in a mighty rage.

"_STOP!"_

And punched a hand straight into the swirling disk of light.

For a second, there was a strange pause, and then Ginny Weasley ignited in a single flash of incandescent heat and the cold, howling sun stopped and shot to a single point of light before disappearing with the echoing clang of a huge door slamming shut.

Ginny Weasley had pulled herself together and saved everyone after all, but in the stunned and silent Chamber, of the girl with the diadem, flaming hair and blazing temper – a Red Queen - all that was left was ashes.

Amidst the floating flakes, a bent and blackened tiara clattered to the floor.

xxxx

_NOTE: Yep, that was an enormous chapter - hence it took a while. I could have split it at the point where Harry tells Voldie to go to hell, but I didn't want the reader to have any let-up. I wanted them to have to sail through the whole thing in one hit - just as the character of Harry has to._

_Well, only one chapter to go now ... the tidy-up epi chapter._

_In future, I might publish a sequel, I might not - it depends on how I feel._


	40. Chapter 40

Title: (Chapter 40)  
Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.  
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.  
Main Character(s): H. D. Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.  
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!  
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … Draco!  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 

**Chapter 40**

The silence resounded throughout the great arching space, and then there was a last, grubby scuffle as remaining Death Eaters struggled and were overcome by the more determined and more practiced Order and Aurors.

Most Death Eaters were caught and disarmed, but the smart ones took a chance and – Disapparated.

As the last struggling Death Eaters were subdued, Harry simply stared, slack, at where the great whirling light had been. There was nothing to show it had ever existed. Nothing to show it had swept up dozens of people and annihilated Ginny Weasley. Not even a burn-mark on the wall.

And he had set that weapon off.

Far behind him was the last – _pop!_ - of Apparition as a final Death Eater escaped.

Harry didn't even bother to turn around.

Death Eaters had Disapparated? So, the wards were down now: could Scrimgeour have sent the bombs and buried the Chamber after all, but he'd come to save Harry instead? Of all the people who had died for him, Scrimgeour – possibly the worst of the lot – was the only one who had done it _after_ the job was done, _after_ Voldemort had been defeated. He had done it when The Boy Who Lived no longer mattered.

Since his mother and father, many people had died for or because of The Boy Who Lived, but Scrimgeour – devious, ruthless, grinning, pragmatic Scrimgeour - was the one who had died for Harry Potter.

And for that – after the night he'd had, after all the deaths he'd seen – for that, Harry felt his eyes well-up and he started to silently weep.

'… _sometimes you have to do an awful thing to attain a worthwhile end, Harry …'_

And Harry too had done that: he had set that weapon off because at the time he had done it, there had been no other option.

He'd just have to forgive himself.

People about him were starting to come out of the shock and mill about.

Horribly, body-parts strew the Chamber: not just the hands and forearms Rufus Scrimgeour and Malfoy's father.

Ministry figures tentatively picked the two hands up, was there even enough left to give either of them a burial.

Harry tried to not think of where each man might be now.

Or Ginny Weasley.

Remus bent and put Harry's wand in his limp hand, curling his fingers about it. Remus then stood nearby, not looking at Harry but just there as an unobtrusive presence, a comfort if required.

It occurred to Harry in a blank sort of way that Remus did not even know about Tonks.

Tonks was sitting on the floor against a wall, head down and crying, still driving off anyone who came near her: she knew what she'd done, she was someone else who would have to try to come to terms with the way things were.

Remus looked at her, then looked away.

Someone was picking Hermione up from the floor and trying to examine her for injury – particularly where she'd been shot in the chest by the spell … _'A few bruised ribs, no real damage …she's wearing a Basilisk vest – Minerva McGonagall gave it to her …'_

A clever woman protected by a snake.

Hermione was jabbering, '… a Basilisk – a Basilisk – but snakes can turn into dragons, and it's dragon' blood …'

She was making little sense and the Aurors shushed her.

Away to one side, Bill was murmuring, congregating with some other very capable-looking young men who had been fighting there: fellow Cursebreakers whom Harry vaguely recognised from the wedding. He numbly wondered how they'd been able to use their wands.

There was the pop of in-bound Apparition now as Ministry figures arrived.

Away down the Chamber, an argument broke out.

"I think we'll take the box and the ring."

"No, I rather think not."

The Auror's wrist was gripped by a tall, thin, red-haired young man in pin-stripped robes. "I think they will be coming directly into Ministerial custody, which right now – with the death of the Minister – means _me_."

Percy Weasley firmly detached the Auror's hand from the combination of the box and the ring. He beckoned to a man over to his right – it was Kingsley Shacklebolt, sporting a split lip and a gash down one side of his face.

Kinglsey had been there too.

"Here, Shacklebolt, you take it."

"And who's he to get it?" the first Auror objected.

"Your new boss."

Percy, determinedly indicated the back wall of the Chamber, "Ever since the report that the last one when hurtling through that disk."

Percy turned to Kingsley, explaining. "Ministerial Protocol No. 19 (d) (ii): in the event of the death of a Minister and without the Wizengamot's first post-mortem convention, the Ministerial Secretary has representative authority. Currently, that's me. In the next few hours the Wizengamot will meet but," he thrust the box and the ring at Shacklebolt, "you're the Head of the Auror Dept. until somebody tells you otherwise."

Ministerial figures were Apparating in from all over now.

A slightly shambolic-looking figure stepped up, it nodded at Percy.

"Perce."

Percy started then nodded back.

"Dad."

"Nice move with the Goblins, son – I only just heard."

There was a small pause and then a stiff smile.

"Thanks Dad."

Percy Weasley had gone behind everyone's back and, instead of fighting at the lake, had taken the Ministerial seal from Scrimgeour's vacant desk and had gone to Ragnor – the leader of the Goblins - to cut a binding deal, cementing it with an impress of the Great Seal. Unauthorised, Percy had gotten the Cursebreakers back in the fight.

"What did you offer them, son? Liberties? Enfranchisement?"

"Pension rights."

Harry would have laughed if he could have brought himself to do it.

Sitting on a stone bench set into a side-wall, Romilda Vane slumped over, wand beside her, leaning on her elbows, hands and wrists dangling into the gap between her knees. She had a swelling lump on her temple and looked like she'd been in several fights.

She glanced up, astonished, as a flash of a particular shade of red moved by: Ron had limped up toward his dad and elder brother.

He was alive after Remus had told Romilda that he was dead.

Eyes wide, face washed clean by a dawning hope, Romilda's mouth shifted soundlessly as she made to half-rise, but then Hermione, having struggled up from the floor, hurtled into Ron almost knocking him off his feet – frantically burying her head in his shoulder, crying.

Ron started for a second and almost as a slightly mechanical reaction, put his arm about her.

"I knew I was right – I knew I was right."

Harry dully knew that could be no-one but Hermione: death all around her but now that the immediate danger had passed, her prime concern was to prove that 'she was right'.

Just like she had been over the 'Half-Blood Prince'.

"It was the locket – the locket." Her voice was snuffling, wet and squeaky. "It was a picture of Rowena Ravenclaw and Slytherin in Slytherin's locket. He loved her you see – even though she wouldn't have him. She was a Muggleborn. So the weapon couldn't have been against Muggleborns because he'd never have done anything to hurt her. It was to annihilate all those who were unworthy. _I knew I was right_."

She wailed anew and pressed her face into Ron's shoulder.

Harry wondered if all that meant they were back together? Ron was a hero now – he had proved it - was that enough to buy him Hermione's ongoing respect? But if that was what it took … well, you couldn't save someone's life every day …

Watching Hermione and Ron, Romilda heavily sat back down again. Her mouth quirked and, looking away to one side, she spat out a gobbet of blood from a loose back-tooth and wiped her mouth, continuing to stare away into a corner.

Harry numbly wondered if Ron really knew what had just happened to Ginny? Did he even know about his Mum?

A Ministerial aide hesitantly approached the three Weasleys, murmuring something. All three looked at him utter incredulity, as though he must surely be quite mad.

Then Mr. Weasley gave a sharp, high, cry, Hermione looked up and about her unhappily as Ron brushed her off and stormed alone from the Chamber, not looking left or right.

He was in such a hollow-eyed, refusing temper, he didn't even see Harry, he clearly didn't even feel the pain in his leg.

Hermione stared after him.

Ron must have heard about his mum and sister.

Harry wondered if Ron would hold it against him: if he hadn't set that weapon off then Ginny Weasley wouldn't have been killed shutting it down.

At one end of the Chamber, near the shattered doors, an Auror picked up the fallen, blackened tiara. He held it tentatively at arm's-length, as though afraid it would go off in his hand. This time, Percy Weasley, staring distraught and disbelieving at the aide, did nothing to demand that he put it back.

Voices could be heard as people hesitantly inspected the tiara _'… what happened? Apparently she was wearing it. Did it have any effect on her? … seventh child … usually can do wandless magic, but there were no reports of any extra power manifesting with her …'_

But wandless magic -? But … in the kitchen when the sugar bowl shattered, when the coals had spat from the fire, when Romilda Vane's stuff had been found ripped asunder in her locked trunk … those things had all happened when Ginny Weasley had been in a dreadful temper.

When she'd sealed that breach into the howling, white waste, she had sported the worst temper Harry had ever seen her in.

Quiet murmurs filtered through the air as people contemplated the box, the ring and the space where the weapon had erupted _'… Devil's Door … Dark Road … Scholomance …?'_

At that, even Kingsley Shacklebolt – now holding the box and the ring, looked extremely uncomfortable.

As though dismantling the detonator from a bomb, he gingerly removed the ring from the box. After a second of tentative pulling, it came away with a quiet click – like two magnets being pulled apart.

The Scholomance? Yes, because that was why Hermione had recognised the box: she had seen it in a book at Durmstrang guarded by that vampire Brethren.

In the middle of the Chamber, people avoided the twin effigies of Bellatrix and Narcissa. A few gave them uncomfortable glances, but no-one wanted to touch them. There were whispers from those who flicked glance at the statues: _'… that'll be something for the Unforgivables …'_

Harry registered it: some-_thing._

They were talking about Malfoy's mum and auntie.

And now his dad was dead too.

He didn't even know about Kreacher yet.

Malfoy had lost all his close family in the space of two minutes: and one of them he'd sent into that cavernous white waste himself. He'd slashed Lucius Malfoy off Hermione … but really, who knew what exactly would have happened if they'd hit the disk together?

Would Malfoy be forever torturing himself with the thought that if he hadn't done it, then linked to Hermione, the engine might have rejected Lucius Malfoy and that he'd still be alive and here?

Effectively, Malfoy had killed his dad for Hermione Granger. He'd lied to Voldemort for her, he'd protected her as much as he could, and he'd killed for her: twice.

Harry looked about him silently. He felt somehow invisible, viewing events as though he wasn't really a part of them, just some ghostly spectator. He felt that if someone were to pass close-by, then they might walk right through him.

He caught sight of Malfoy sitting on the floor, his knees drawn up, his arms around them, his eyes blank. Neville and Theodore stood nearby, trying not to look as though they were hovering. Crabbe and Goyle stood there, heads to one side as they watched him, almost mewing at him.

Malfoy's eyes held no mirrored glinting now.

Had Harry just imagined that intense mirrored sheen he thought he had seen?

He noticed that although Malfoy had done dreadful things for her – on the spur of the moment some of the time, possibly unthinkingly, possibly even unwillingly - that Hermione did not seem to want to look at him. Harry recalled what Voldemort had said: that she considered him beneath her – but was that despite what he'd done for her or … because of it?

Was it that Malfoy's very existence reminded Hermione of what had been forced to do to extract her from the results of the mess she'd made? Because Hermione had things to reflect upon too: if she hadn't been dosing Harry, he would never have gone out with Ginny Weasley, there would never have been a potions-sweep that drove Ginny out of Hogwarts, the Death Eaters would have had no reason to kidnap her.

Ginny Weasley had been down in that Chamber because of the mistakes she had made, but also because of Hermione's mistakes.

Harry saw that Hermione's gaze roved away from Malfoy, but he could sort of understand why: Malfoy presented a frightful sight.

His father's scarlet arterial blood was still upon him. Sprayed across his pale face and silvery-white hair.

Scarlet and silver: Gryffindor and Slytherin.

He and Harry had acted together in the end – more or less – but God, what an appalling price Malfoy had paid.

Down the Chamber, there was a brief struggle as Snape was dragged along between two Aurors – clearly they either didn't know that he had killed Voldemort or didn't care, believing that it was simply a last-minute switch of sides to save his skin.

Harry twitched, moving to try to speak, but Remus flicked him a glance, took in Harry's shocked condition, and did it for him: "Snape's a member of the Order – put him down."

The Aurors looked at each other, confused, but still gripped the struggling Snape.

"Put him down," growled out Remus. "Dumbledore vouched for him with Harry before – before he died on the tower." Which was technically true but glossed over an awful lot of uncomfortable detail. "Professor Dumbledore's painting is safely on the Durmstrang ship, he'll awaken soon and when he does he can tell you himself."

"Before he died? How does that count? Snape was the one who killed him!"

Snape, glaring eyed and snarling mouthed, wrenched himself free of the recalcitrant Aurors, who looked to snatch him again.

"Because the Professor made him do it."

Everyone stilled as Harry spoke.

Harry's voice was alarmingly flat. It was the first time he had spoken since the weapon had gone off. "He made him promise." Harry gazed at the Aurors without expression. "If you re-examine that Necrotopsy, you'll see that poison and a fall killed the Professor – Scrimgeour said so - not an AK. The Professor's painting will tell you that when it comes-to."

_Scrimgeour said so_ … the magic words. The Aurors moved off unwillingly, still shooting Snape resentful looks.

Snape now beheld Harry with a look that was both wary and resentful, he wasn't sure what Harry knew, wasn't sure what Dumbledore had told him.

Snape stalked off, giving Harry a look of distrust and distaste.

Auror attention drew about Malfoy, with people shooting him looks and muttering.

As with Snape, they weren't minded to simply accept that he had changed sides – or possibly they didn't want to believe it? Having a blackened enemy was always so convenient if one wished to regard oneself as pure-white.

But another Ministerial aide came up, looked at Malfoy, then at the Aurors, and shook his head.

Harry caught the murmurs: _'… Minister Scrimgeour – ex-Minister Scrimgeour – vouched for him … went down in the Chamber …had some sort of plan …'_

"The last thing the wizarding world needs right now is factionalism." Percy Weasley's voice was trembling – he had heard about his mother and sister – but he was still stepping in to make his point. "We need unity, and Malfoy – because of his birthright, his family name, and tonight's actions - is the symbol for Slytherins the wizarding world over. If we reject him, we reject them, it's that simple. We can't afford to reject them. We can't have this 'us and them' mess building up again."

Percy shot a red-eyed look at Harry, his eyes were very wet, the tip of his nose very red, his voice very thick, but he still spoke.

"Harry has let me know that one of his conditions for supporting the fair reputation of the wizarding government, is a full pardon for Draco Malfoy from _any_ crimes committed hereto."

It was a lie, Harry hadn't opened his mouth at all, but it was a necessary lie. They couldn't have divisive arrests now.

As the Aurors looked at Malfoy, Harry kept his mouth shut, nodding at Percy.

"Fine. It's agreed, then," Percy confirmed.

His voice sounded terribly tight.

A well-fed looking Ministry figure in shiny shoes and an expensive suit took a look over at Malfoy who was still slumped against the wall.

"We can use him anyway. From what I hear, with a bit of training he'd make a fabulous asset: we always need Wizards who are prepared to be …ruthless. He was prepared to kill his own father, apparently …"

Harry felt a jolting spike.

Were they implying that Malfoy would somehow be some government killer – what did they politely call them – _operatives_?

Malfoy had killed because he'd had to do it!

"He's got to be free to do as he chooses," Harry's voice was a yelp, as though his voice-box had stopped working properly, had rusted up. "Not free to be your puppet. Our choices are what make us, not someone else's choices for us!"

The Ministry official liked at him as though didn't quite get it, "Well as the Head of Legal Affairs -"

Percy interjected.

"The press will be onto this soon. I think we'd like Harry on-board before they come, wouldn't we? I think we'd like Minister Scrimgeour's memory to be that of a man who had died a hero?"

And not as a kidnapping killer.

Percy continued, his voice sounding very strained, as though he was fighting back a terrible urge to weep.

"I'm sure no-one would wish for a probing press, instability and … mass sackings."

At that last, the other official looked flustered.

"Well. Of course. Yes. Quite."

Percy waived a wand at his Ministerial Portfolio and a lengthy piece of parchment appeared in mid-air: Malfoy's pardon.

After a look at Malfoy, the Head of Legal Affairs hurried signed it with a shaking hand.

xxxx

Oddly, despite all that had happened, very little time had been lost from even the first term of the new school year, and with all the surviving students back at Hogwarts now, the school righted itself as did the Ministry

Millicent Bagnold – long retired but still active - was re-appointed as Minister of Magic. She was the interim, comforting, consensus appointment: someone nobody objected to and everyone could at least make a show of supporting.

As Ron pointed out, in any case her appointment suited a lot of people: she was of an age where in a few years she would retire again, and so everyone was content to have her where she was, using the time to position themselves for promotion in the scramble when she left.

The school-children all heard rumours about the Chamber: that it had been sealed from the school again but was under constant Ministry monitoring. The tiara, the locket, the cup the ring and the box had all disappeared inside the Ministry.

Oddly, they could not take the sword even with repeated efforts: it refused to come out from the stone.

In the end it had been left there, glinting in the low, greenish light of the sealed-off and silent Chamber.

The school settled. With Ernie dead, surprisingly – or maybe not surprisingly at all - Neville was appointed Head Boy.

His Gran had given a crowing interview to the Prophet, singing his praises and comparing him to his father.

Neville had almost cringed with discomfort.

The school now had a commemorative plaque in the Great Hall, listing the names of all those who had died in the 'second war'. Harry noticed that Malfoy always sat facing away from it. In contrast, Ron had made himself stare at the printed line showing his sister's name until his eyes had burned, unblinking, and then watered, and then gone red, and then … had stopped watering.

If he ever held Harry in any way responsible for what had happened, he never said it. He and Harry shared many a quiet hour playing chess or out on the Quidditch pitch just rhythmically lobbing Quaffles back and forth to each other – with Harry on a school broom.

He'd gotten his Cloak back – it had been found amidst the rocks by the lake – but his Firebolt had been irreparable.

Whenever she passed it, Hermione had looked at the plaque uncomfortably and then hurried past it, head in the air.

She had been made up to Head Girl again, her expulsion revoked. Some children muttered, disgruntled, at her re-appointment to the Head position, but it would have been embarrassing not to – she had been instrumental in the Chamber - and it was all about politics.

The Daily Prophet had run article after article on the events leading up to Voldemort's downfall – some of them even written by Rita Skeeter.

The meaning of Harry's scar had been pored over obsessively. The rebounded Avada with Voldemort was a matter of public record. There were even mutterings that Harry's scar had been some kind of unintended Horcrux, created that far off night at Godric's Hollow.

Likewise, the now-revealed prophecy had all been obsessively pored over in the press, tying it all to _Hero Harry!_

But Harry was never so sure. He thought the prophecy could have been about a lot of people – or a lot of people all acting together. A Power the Dark Lord knew not? He had been given the scar, and some connection to Voldemort which had rebounded on him but … Malfoy had his amended, dragon-infused blood and that had mattered too – Harry knew something had gone on with that Basilisk, and there were mutterings among the staff occasionally. Plus Malfoy's unholy deviousness and stubbornness were also a power of sorts. Ron, Neville, Theodore had loyalty and courage – and that had counted enormously too. Hermione had her intelligence. Ginny had her ferocious will and untapped power which had slammed the door on hell.

Luna had always had her faith: faith in Harry, '_I know you have it within you somewhere…'_ and he had, but in such an unexpected, almost random way. And that was the worst part about it: if he had been some inadvertent Horcrux, then to defeat Voldemort, all he had ever had to do, was die.

If Luna hadn't stood in front of him in the churchyard, the destruction of whatever had been in his head would have happened anyway.

Harry was another one who couldn't look at the plaque.

Harry knew that the Order had been in quiet talks with the Ministry about Harry, about his scar, about his ability to set the weapon off … _the blood of an Heir._ But as McGonagall had smartly pointed out, all talk of 'heirs' was utter nonsense and always had been. If Slytherin had fathered two children who'd each had two children who'd each had two children down and down through the centuries, then even if 99 of them had died out along the way then there'd still me millions of people walking around who were descended from him, and there weren't even a million wizards in the whole of Britain!

It would be a shock if anyone – like Hermione - wasn't 'the blood of an Heir'.

In any case, Harry found it of no interest, and after a short while did not even find any interest in the aesthetically pleasing fact that his once livid scar had faded to a fine silvery line.

Ron and Hermione had settled into some sort of coupledom, but Harry felt it couldn't last. After a short period where Ron could do no wrong, reality had re-asserted itself and now they were increasingly sliding toward their old ways of grudging against each other, with Hermione fault-finding and Ron resentful.

You couldn't save someone's life every day after all.

Because Ron was not as adept as Hermione in Potions, whenever the class had to pair up, Malfoy was allocated with Hermione.

Despite the fact that they should have done extremely well, the many explosions from their workbench sometimes weren't magic-related.

Harry had once heard Malfoy hiss: _"You and the Weasel, stuck back together again? I thought you had more guts Granger!"_

Which at least was improvement on what Malfoy usually said: nothing.

He seemed permanently angry.

Harry had once tried to talk to him about the events of that night, about the battle. Malfoy had shrugged him off and stalked away.

It was not a help that at the re-start of school there had been an inaugural, commemorative feast – almost a second start for things – at which the Sorting Hat had been brought out to sit on the teachers' dais as an emblem of the school ethos.

Half-way through the feast it had silenced the Hall by beginning to sing of its own accord: a song of unity, singing that it refused to divide the pupils any longer.

To a rising buzz of astonished conversation, most peoples robes and House insignia changed colour while they were actually wearing them: the Hat had resorted randomly and then … almost un-noticed in the rising swirl of voices as people looked disbelievingly down at their robes, the Hat disintegrated.

Round eyed behind his spectacles, Harry saw that Malfoy – of all things – got allocated to Hufflepuff _… the house of the good all-rounder, always willing to give a half-way decent chap a second chance …_

Malfoy, jaw clenched, had closed his eyes for long seconds in utter disgust.

Harry knew that Remus and Tonks had split up. No tears or recriminations – apart from possibly self-recriminations – thy had each simply wanted to get as far away from each other as possible. All each saw in the other now, were their own failures. The 'relationship' had not broken up 'messily' because there had never been anything genuinely there to break up.

Tonks had gotten a year-long sabbatical from the Aurors.

Many quietly expected that she'd never come back.

Snape had regained the post of Professor of D.A.D.A. His lessons were terse but rewarding. He and Harry kept a distance from each other though, and now in contrast to before, during lessons Harry felt not that Snape was covertly watching him, hoping for him to slip up so he could dock House-points, but that Snape was trying his best to ignore him, pretending that Harry wasn't there.

Harry had never told anyone what Professor Dumbledore had told him. Uncomfortably, he hadn't wanted anyone knowing about Snape and his mum, any more than Snape did – but he supposed for rather different reasons.

Harry's statement about the fall and the poison had been corroborated and Snape had been rehabilitated, although many still did not trust him.

Professor Dumbledore's sleeping portrait had finally awoken in a flurry of blurted instructions about Horcruxes.

It had come as rather a surprise to him that it had all been sorted in his absence.

Harry had visited the Professor's portrait often at first, but as time had passed he visited less and less until – feeling guilty nonetheless – he had stopped completely – it had made him feel uncomfortable.

He still kept the miniature of Phineas Nigellus on his though: propped by his bed it was better than an alarm clock with Nigellus snorting at him to 'get up in time for lessons'.

Their career choices had come up as topics: Ron still wanted to be an Auror. It was an open secret that he'd get accepted into Auror Training even if he never passed a single N.E.W.T. in his life. He'd escaped the Aurors at The Burrow He had held Tonks to a draw. He had escaped the Inferi, crawling up on to a far side of the lake shore, swearing insults. And he had managed to stop Harry from getting killed. No matter what his theory marks were ever going to be, he'd proved he could do it where it counted.

Hermione was going into the government, there were rumours about the school about the Unspeakables.

In a talk with Remus, Harry had told him that he wanted to be a doctor.

Remus had looked surprised – hadn't he always wanted to be an Auror?

But being an Auror had always been Ron's ambition first – though he had voiced it hesitantly as though others would scoff at the very thought of someone like _him_ even trying for it. Harry had only jumped on the idea because it had sounded cool.

But now he didn't want to be one. There were too many ill-associations. He didn't want to ever be in a position where he might have to kill anyone. So … he didn't want to be an Auror, he didn't want to be part of the government … but a doctor? His N.E.W.T.S. fitted and … he supposed he still had a 'saving people' thing after all.

As Ron had once said, you needed the same N.E.W.T.S. to be an Auror as a doctor, so Harry didn't even have to change courses. As Ron had also once said: _I bet St. Mungo's take any idiot in the end …_

No-one knew what Malfoy wanted to do or be. As time dragged on, his behaviour grew worse and his marks dropped. He missed increasing numbers of lessons and often he did not hand in homework at all. It was as though he thought that school was an encumbrance to get through, fit only for those too naïve for real life.

"Besides – what do I need a job for, I've got money."

He did too, Harry quietly reckoned that Malfoy was probably the single richest person he knew. He had all of his grandfather's inheritance, everything from his parents, including his mother's private wealth, and he had inherited from his aunt.

Malfoy had gotten money and property aplenty, but that night in the Chamber he had lost everything else.

Early on, he had demanded that Harry take him to Grimmauld Place and Harry had wondered if he wanted the house back. But Malfoy had simply stalked up the staircase, taking the elf-heads off the wall with a curious gentleness. He had Disapparated without acknowledging Harry.

It had emerged later that in the high-walled extensive city-garden of Malfoy's London house that he had built a tomb where he had interned Kreacher and the remains of all those other elves. It had been carved with silver-gilt letters: The Elves of the House of Black.

Apparently, 'Crabbe and Goyle' were at Malfoy's country property: the Wiltshire manor of the Malfoy family. 'Crabbe and Goyle' had the run of the huge grounds and their own purpose-built, and very comfy, cave.

It was rumoured that Malfoy visited often, but that he hardly ever went inside the manor itself.

Harry offered his hand to Malfoy in the corridor one day, wanting somehow to confront him, to shake him out of his anger and apathy.

Malfoy had turned him down.

"Look Malfoy, if I'd taken your hand that time on the train in first-year, things would have been totally different. Let's just .. try again!"

"Potter," Malfoy had turned and faced him, "I really don't care. So I offered you my hand in first-year and you picked Weasley over me: big deal. At this point I'd rather not be reminded of my own failings in offering and of your sheer bad taste in refusing."

Pansy Parkinson – unharmed from the battle for the castle – had approached with a misery-faced apprehensiveness, looking needily at Malfoy.

Malfoy had swiveled on his heel, striding off.

"Oh for god's sake," he said to no-one in particular, "the last thing I need is a fucking girlfriend."

The one girl he had told himself he wanted, had never wanted him …

Harry had stared after him, wondering how much of what Voldemort had flung at Malfoy was true.

Things had snapped when Malfoy had, in a fit of undirected anger, actually sworn at Snape during a D.A.D.A lesson – one of the few classes he still regularly attended.

He and the dark-eyed, sallow Professor had stared at each other: it had been hard to say which of them had been more shocked.

The next day, muttered gossip could be heard in every corridor: Malfoy had left the school.

Hermione had cried out, shocked, when she'd heard. "But he can't do that! _He can't!"_

But he had.

Tortured by the thought of what he had done to his father, of what had happened to Ginny Weasley, of what had been said to him by and about Ginny Weasley …

Harry supposed Malfoy could join the club – the club of those who tortured and berated themselves, and possibly each other, over what had happened.

It had quite a lot of members.

Harry supposed their futures depended on what they each chose to do about it really …

xxxx

In some other white, formless, barren waste, a place of no sky, no sea, no earth, of no boundaries whatever so that no-where was everywhere and everywhere was no-where, the same figure simultaneously made its way toward to different men, each isolated in a cool white space, each missing a hand.

Most people went mad in this space in hardly any time at all. But these two were strong, and the figure had been given so few new souls in such a long time …

As the same figure reached each man simultaneously, it made a show of politeness. It smiled. These were to be negotiations: each of these handless men understood negotiations.

The figures smiled before each man: polite, cool - determined.

"I am about to make you an offer, and if you are wise, you will accept it …"

AUTHOR'S NOTE: well, it's been quite a way - for those of us who got this far. I may or may not sequel. Clearly though, I'm thinking about it, as this last chapter was just as much 'set up' as 'wind down'. If I do write a sequel, it won't appear for many months and ... will feature Draco heavily and be straight D/Hr (which I think I've set up well enough to be convincingly resolved in its own twisted little way). All the other characters will be there, but the emotional core will be D/Hr. It will involve Unspeakable Bookworm!Hermione having to team up with Unbearable Assassin!Draco as they battle government deceptions, shady power-figures - and each other - in the race to save the world from the effects of the Resurrection Engine. Oh - and did I mention Draco's stolen Bugatti Veyron?

Those who don't like Draco in 'The Road To Hell' really wouldn't like him in ... 'The Torture Club'.

If I do it, once again I will publish as creamtea-from-FAP.

Bye-bye.


End file.
